Commons Sitting of 22 October 1975

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  PORT ASKAIG PIER ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF EDINBURGH ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read the Third time and passed.

  MALLAIG HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION
  Mr. William Ross Mr. William Ross presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under Section 7 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to Mallaig Harbour: and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be considered upon Tuesday next and to be printed. [Bill 240.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  SCOTLAND

    Local Government
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is satisfied with the operation of local government in Scotland.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): The new local government system has been in operation for only six months. It is far too early to attempt to reach firm conclusions about it. I am satisfied that members and officials are carrying out their responsibilities effectively in the face of difficulties presented in the early stages of the new system and by the present economic situation.
    Mr. Canavan: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the great concern about the vicious rises in rents and rates, while some of the new local authorities spend money like drunken sailors on extravagant schemes such as cheap mortgages and rent allowances for overpaid officials, trips abroad and empire building, while open democracy is threatened by the exclusion of the Press from meetings? Does my right hon. Friend back the call by Labour Members of Parliament and local Labour Party branches for an independent inquiry into the affairs of the Central Regional Council?
    Mr. Ross: Inquiries into such matters are not related to the statutory duties of the Secretary of State. Pay and the home loan scheme are matters for negotiation between the local authorities as employers and the National Joint Council. Indeed, these matters follow from the negotiations which took place earlier in the year. The home loan scheme was related to reorganisation. Guidance was sent out in respect of the scheme by the National Joint Council just over a year ago. The implementation and administration of that scheme is a matter for local authorities which have autonomy in such matters. I am not required and have no right to approve such decisions. This is where the vigilance of ratepayers comes in. I am not required to give approval to every executive act of a local authority, thank goodness.
    Mr. Galbraith: As well as the concern about financial matters to which the hon. Gentleman referred, there is also concern about the apparent growth in the size of the bureaucracy. Will the Secretary of State say to what extent the number of local officials is now larger than it was before reorganisation?
    Mr. Ross: We have moved from a system whereby there were about 240 local authorities to 65 with different functions. We are making inquiries into the growth of the number employed, but at this stage we do not have the figures. I have emphasised to the local authorities the need to exercise considerable restraint on increasing the manpower of these services, as I am conscious of the difficulties.
    Mr. Reid: Is the Secretary of State aware of the growing view in Scotland that the reform of local government was hopelessly back to front and that Scotland is in danger of becoming the most over-governed nation in Western Europe, with elections to community councils, districts, regions, the Assembly, the Parliament at Westminster and possibly even the European Parliament? Does he conclude that the proper model for a Scottish Government is an Assembly with broad strategic powers, and all-purpose district authorities and community councils with strengthened powers?
    Mr. Ross: This matter was raised during discussions on the Local Government Act. The hon. Gentleman should be conscious of his own responsibilities. The Local Government (Scotland) Act was passed without a Division on Second Reading. The hon. Gentleman's leader was in the House at the time, but said nothing on Second and Third Readings.
    Mr. Lambie: Is my right hon. Friend prepared to make a statement on the negotiations between his officials and the representatives of the local government associations on the need for a supplementary rate support grant to allow councils to reduce the ever-increasing rates?
    Mr. Ross: I know nothing about such negotiations. My right hon. Friend the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhill, is meeting local authorities fairly soon to discuss some of these matters. Many of these aspects have been covered and others will
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    be covered in answer to a later Question. It would be wrong to assume that it was feasible to carry out some of the suggestions now being made.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Given that the financial implications of local government are now causing the greatest concern, will the Secretary of State confirm or deny reports in today's newspapers that the Secretary of State for the Environment intends to peg rates in the coming financial year for England and Wales? Given the hammering now being suffered by Scottish ratepayers, does the right hon. Gentleman propose to peg rates in Scotland in the year ahead?
    Mr. Ross: I do not think that there is any question of pegging rates. We are talking about how to contain expenditures. We can take action on money provided by the Government but we have no independent power as regards the raising of finance through the rates. At that point difficulties arise. We are holding negotiations and meetings with the local authorities to improve the situation. I am sure that local authorities are equally anxious to curtail the rates as far as possible.

    Tied Cottages
    Mr. Robin F. Cookasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on forthcoming legislation concerning agricultural tied cottages.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Hugh D. Brown): My right hon. Friends, the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have invited the views of interests concerned on the form the legislation to end the tied cottage system in England and Wales should take, with a view to framing detailed proposals at an early date. However, I have decided that, before any firm decisions are taken on the Scottish position, more time is required to examine the special factors applying in Scotland and for discussions with representatives of the agricultural industry and local authorities.
    Mr. Cook: In the course of his discussions will my hon. Friend also consult the Shelter housing aid project, whose full-time worker has built up considerable

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    experience of the anxiety caused by eviction from tied cottages, which makes up the bulk of his case load? Most of us would find it unfortunate if we were called upon to support legislation to end the system in England and Wales before we knew what the Government proposed to do with the system in Scotland.
    Mr. Brown: The election commitment included Scotland as well. The circumstances in Scotland are different and, therefore, the timing is different, mainly because of the burden on housing authorities. I have no objection to consulting anyone who has anything to contribute, including Shelter.
    Sir John Gilmour: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that agricultural interests—both workers and farmers—have recommended the retention of tied cottages in Scotland?
    Mr. Brown: Yes, that is one of the special differences, but I wish that the farmers would not exaggerate the importance of keeping tied cottages. If the farmers would be a bit more reasonable, we could solve the problem to everyone's satisfaction.

    Economic Prospects
    Mr. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the prospects for the Scottish economy for the period to the end of 1975.
    Mr. Teddy Taylorasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the outlook for the Scottish economy.
    Mr. William Ross: I would refer the hon. Members to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) on 15th October.—[Vol. 897, c. 721.]
    Mr. Henderson: Is the Secretary of State aware that since that reply a new set of unemployment figures for Scotland has been issued? Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with these figures, and when will the Government assure the people of Scotland that there is a firm prospect of a job for everyone over the next year?
    Mr. Ross: I am aware of the new set of figures issued yesterday. Those figures
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    show, I am glad to say, that nearly 4,000 school leavers are no longer unemployed. There has been some improvement there. I am never satisfied with these figures, but the hon. Gentleman should appreciate exactly what has been done. An announcement was made about the tem-temporary employment subsidy. There are the job creation scheme of the Manpower Services Commission, the recruitment subsidy for school leavers, the training schemes of the Manpower Services Commission, the advance factory provision and the addition made to Section 8 assistance to industry. We have not been idle. I am glad that we had the support of the whole House yesterday for the Scottish Development Agency but I should have liked to have had it earlier. I think that everyone appreciates that we are concerned about unemployment and that we are taking action.
    Mr. Taylor: Is not the Secretary of State living in a dream world when he refers to yesterday's figures as an improvement? The seasonally adjusted figures show that unemployment in Scotland at 120,000, excluding school leavers, is increasing at the rate of more than 1,000 every week. Does the right hon. Gentleman still take the view that when unemployment in Scotland reaches 100,000 the honourable course for the Secretary of State for Scotland is to resign? Will he tell us what we failed to find out in 10 hours' debate yesterday, which is how much cash will be available to the Scottish Development Agency in its first year?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman should appreciate that we have not yet fixed the vesting day for the SDA. Many of his supplementary questions are not related to the main Question. I am surprised at the hon. Gentleman's concern about the unemployment figure reaching 100,000. Some people—I am one—think that the present figures are far too high but between June 1971 and February 1973, during which period the hon. Gentleman was an occasional Minister, the unemployment figures were never lower than they are now.

    Hill Farming
    Mr. MacCormickasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the difficulties currently facing hill farming in Scotland.
    Mr. Hugh D. Brown: Returns from lamb sales and the early calf sales show a marked improvement on last year. I hope that the assurances we have given to beef producers about the level of their returns next year will have a beneficial effect on hill farmers' receipts from the sales that have still to take place.
    We shall be reviewing the position shortly when we have more information about receipts and costs.
    Mr. MacCormick: Does not the Minister appreciate that the figure for current calf sales in the hill farming areas compared with the 1973 figure is £3 per hundredweight lower? Bearing in mind the tremendous rise in costs over that period in all kinds of agricultural expenditure, does not the Minister agree that the least he can do is to arrange for earlier payment of the hill cow subsidy and the retention of the £10 calf supplement?
    Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman has asked about three questions in that one supplementary question.
    Mr. MacCormick: Answer one of them.
    Mr. Brown: I shall answer them all, if the hon. Gentleman will give me peace. Yes, we are well aware that, although, as I said, the prices have increased compared with last year, they are still not up to the 1973 figures. Equally, all—including the agricultural community—should be aware that our attempts to control rising inflation can make a significant contribution to maintaining cost levels, and cost levels are as important as the price which is received at the end of the day.

    Local Authorities (Meeting)
    Lord James Douglas-Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he is next going to meet representatives of the district and regional councils.
    The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Bruce Millan): My noble Friend the Minister of State will be meeting representatives of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on 24th October to discuss financial matters.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that a working party consisting of representatives from the Strathclyde Regional
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    Council, the Lothian Regional Council and the Edinburgh and Glasgow District Councils has been formed to consider the possibility of holding the 1984 Olympic Games in Scotland? Will he consider sympathetically any recommendations that the working party makes to the effect that the Olympic Games should be held in the West of Scotland with certain events being held in the East of Scotland? Will the right hon. Gentleman also give serious consideration to any recommendation to the effect that the 1982 European Games should be held in Edinburgh, and will the Government do everything within their power to encourage sport in Scotland in connection with the 1982 European Games and the 1984 Olympic Games?
    Mr. Millan: We are doing everything we can to encourage sport in Scotland. The two proposals referred to by the hon. Gentleman are not yet firm proposals. It is a little early to ask for Government reaction because no proposal has been put to the Government. If any proposal comes to us, we shall examine it carefully, but there would be serious public expenditure implications in either of the proposals and we are already in a period in which public expenditure constraints are severe.
    Mr. Crawford: When the Minister of State meets representatives of the regional and district councils, will he meet representatives from Tayside Region and Perth and Kinross District to seek ways and means of ironing out the dreadful duplications in planning procedure whereby the district council agrees planning permission and Tayside Region withdraws it?
    Mr. Millan: That is a detailed question which I shall be glad to pursue on another occasion. When the convention comes to meet Ministers, the convention decides which of its representatives should come.
    Dr. Bray: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a major problem about the use of sporting facilities which are intended for wide use is the cost of transport to centres, for example, between Motherwell and Hamilton such as the Strathclyde Regional Park, which the Government support? Will he examine whether the Government are over-providing on capital but not sufficiently providing on operating subsidies?
    Mr. Millan: Operating subsidies for transport have never been a factor in sports provision. In a period of public expenditure constraint there is an overall difficulty about the provision of new capital projects in a number of spheres because they inevitably attract running costs, too. We have to look at both capital expenditure and running costs together.
    Mr. Rifkind: Will the Minister improve upon the inadequate answer given by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith)? Does he not appreciate that the Secretary of State for the Environment has stated that he intends to keep rate increases in England and Wales down to the level of inflation? Can the Minister explain why this policy is suitable for England and Wales, but a similar policy is not suitable for Scotland, given the present appalling rates problem?
    Mr. Millan: I cannot remember the question, but I am sure that the answer given by my right hon. Friend was perfectly adequate. If the hon. Gentleman is referring to cash limits, this is a matter that will be discussed with the local authorities on Friday.

    A9 (Bridges)
    Mr. Grayasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will now announce the names of the successful contractors for the bridges linking North and South Kessock and from Findon to Ardullie both on the A9.
    Mr. Millan: Discussions about the possibility of finding a cheaper way of building the bridge at Kessock are still in progress. I have not yet invited tenders for the bridging of the Cromarty Firth.
    Mr. Gray: Does the Minister realise that grave concern is spreading over the Highlands of Scotland due to the indecision by the Government about these projects and that the A9 is a vital link to the industrial development of Easter Ross, which we all hope will thrive but which cannot do so to the full until this matter is dealt with satisfactorily? Does he realise that we can take a road to the water but only the Secretary of State
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    in Scotland has the power to make it cross?
    Mr. Millan: It is quite an expensive crossing at present. I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman meant when he mentioned indecision. The statement about the Kessock bridge was made only at the end of July and there have been discussions since then with a number of people, including the Inverness Harbour Authority. A number of alternative possibilities have already been explored. A crossing of this sort, for which the lowest tender was more than £30 million, requires serious consideration, particularly when Opposition Members are constantly telling us to save public expenditure.

    Housing (Modernisation)
    Mr. Welshasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is satisfied with present schemes for the modernisation of Scottish housing.
    Mr. Hugh D. Brown: I have nothing to add to the reply I gave to the hon. Member on 14th May.—[Vol. 892, c. 122.]
    Mr. Welsh: Will the Minister consider reviewing his answer and bear in mind the needs of non-traditional type houses, which were built around the Second World War with the encouragement of the then Government? Will he bear in mind that steel houses are badly in need of renovation and modernisation? What hope can he give the tenants of these houses? Will he apply special help to meet their special needs?
    Mr. Brown: If the hon. Gentleman had asked that question, I should have been able to give him a more helpful reply. The sorting out of priorities within the modernisation schemes and the generous allocations made by the Government is a matter for the local authority. I am well aware of the urgent situation of some of the non-traditional houses, especially if there is any element of fire risk due to faulty wiring. However, that is primarily the responsibility of the local authority.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: Will the Minister bear in mind the recent rejection by his Department of a scheme for the Linlathen first development in Dundee, which

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    was referred back to the local authority because it was too expensive? Has there been any reduction in the standard and improvement of houses in recent months by the Department as a result of the Government's cash squeeze? If so, how many such projects throughout Scotland have been referred back to local authorities?
    Mr. Brown: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but there has been no reduction in the standard of housing. I emphasise that it is not a cash squeeze but an insistence by the Government that we get value for money. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we want to maintain the highest possible standards for council houses and, indeed, for any other kind of houses.

    Fishing Industry
    Mr. Sproatasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent discussions he has had with representatives of the Scottish fishing industry.
    Mr. William Ross: During my recent visit to Aberdeen Fish Market I had useful informal talks with representatives of trawler crews and owners and fish buyers. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and I are meeting representatives of the United Kingdom fishing industry tomorrow.
    Mr. Sproat: We were glad to see the right hon. Gentleman in Aberdeen and are pleased that he is to meet the industry tomorrow. However, at the conclusion of his visit to Aberdeen did he realise that the fishing industry was in the middle of the worst crisis for a generation? Is he aware that the United Kingdom trawling fleet is contracting faster than any other fleet in the EEC and that, although there was a welcome improvement in earnings in July and August, each vessel of the Scottish fleet that sailed from Scotland was still making a loss of around £5,000 per quarter after subsidies? Tomorrow will he give some assurance to the industry that we shall end the stop-go, hand-to-mouth procedure of the subsidy and introduce long-term security and viability in the industry?
    Mr. Ross: It would have been better for long-term security and viability if this had been done by the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends when they were in office.
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    We introduced the subsidy to meet conditions that had arisen. I am aware of the conditions of the distant water fleet. I am equally aware of the cause. I shall listen tomorrow to representations from the fishing industry. I hope that we shall be able to do something about some of these problems. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do just how complex they are. They are not simply limited to landings or the number of boats that are fishing, but are related to other matters.
    Mr. Grimond: Is the Secretary of State satisfied with the arrangements that have been made for regular meetings with the fishermen? Secondly, has he discussed the fouling of the fishing grounds with them and is any solution in sight? I take this opportunity of thanking the Scottish Office for kindly sending me a letter on this matter, because it is of great importance to Shetland.
    Mr. Ross: We regard this as being of considerable importance in view of the international negotiations taking place. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has given special attention to this matter and will continue to do so. He will keep informed those hon. Members who have special interests in the fishing industry.
    Mr. Sillars: Will my right hon. Friend agree that the most important factor in obtaining confidence, stability and viability in the long term is a fundamental change in the common fisheries policy of the Common Market?
    Mr. Ross: My hon. Friend will appreciate that we have started on a review of the common fisheries policy. During that review we shall bear strongly in mind the special interests of the United Kingdom as a coastal and important fishing community. We shall continue to give priority to what we consider our exceptional needs.
    Mr. Watt: Will the Secretary of State inform the House of the investigations that are taking place into the optimum size of the fishing industry? Will he consider introducing a scrapping subsidy, using money from EEC funds that are available for such a purpose?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman is too pessimistic about this matter. If he reads some of the answers that will be given,

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    not to the Aberdeen section of the industry but to others, he will get some surprising figures. At present I do not consider that it is right to introduce a scrapping subsidy.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Has my right hon. Friend impressed upon the Foreign Secretary that the Scottish fishing industry is constrained already by the Icelandic fishing limits? Will my right hon. Friend also comment on the fact that possibly what is needed is not a scrapping policy but a scrap-and-build policy for the Scottish fleet?
    Mr. Ross: My hon. Friend knows that the unilateral decision by the Icelandic Government has created certain difficulties. We are in negotiation about it and it would be wrong for me to say any more at this point.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Will the right hon. Gentleman please not dodge the issue as put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat)? The fishing industry was in a very much stronger state economically 18 months ago. I accept that much of the deterioration has been entirely outwith the control of Government, but the responsibility for meeting the present situation rests on the Government because they are the Government. Whilst this short-term help is welcome and helpful, what the industry needs is longer-term assurances, a better long-term plan. Even if it means restructuring, will the right hon. Gentleman impress upon his colleagues in the Government that the industry wants to know what is to be spent in the long term rather than exist, as it does at the moment, on a hand-to-mouth basis?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman has had responsibility at the Scottish Office and has had some concern for this situation. One of the great uncertainties of the industry is the whole question of limits and the effect of the common fisheries policy. Until one gets a settlement on the limits, it would be foolish to settle optimum size and other related matters. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we took action to deal with the circumstances which arose. He has a wonderful habit of forgetting his past and simplifying these complex problems.

    Fife School of Nursing
    Mr. Gourlayasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the date for the erection of a building in Kirkcaldy to accommodate the Fife School of Nursing.
    Mr. Speaker: Mr. McElhone.
    Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Frank McElhone): I am grateful for those comments. I am not sure whether they indicated sympathy or conversion.
    I am not able to forecast a starting date since this will depend on the suitability of the proposed site, which is at present being investigated. Also the time required for the production of detailed plans and for obtaining the necessary approvals thereafter and, of course, the availability of finance will have to be considered.
    Mr. Gourlay: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment to the Government and on his first appearance at the Dispatch Box. No doubt his humour and wit will be sorely taxed in his new responsibilities.
    Is my hon. Friend aware that we very much appreciated his visit to the Victoria Hospital on 9th October? I am sure that during that visit the urgent need for orthopaedic and geriatric beds was very much impressed upon him. Is he aware that, unless we get this college of nursing at an early date, there will be no staff available for the new extension to Victoria Hospital and at referral hospitals for orthopaedic and geriatric beds? It is important to expedite the erection of this building.
    Mr. McElhone: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments. I am aware of his concern to have this building situated in Kirkcaldy, but the decision to locate the school in Kirkcaldy was taken by the health board's predecessor, which was the South-East Regional Hospital Board. So far as we know, there is no question now of any other location being chosen. I have no doubt that that will please my hon. Friend. But this is a matter for the local health board.

    Rates
    Mr. Campbellasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has had about the percentage increase in rates, particularly as it affects those areas which were small burghs before local government reorganisation; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. William Ross: Representations have been received from the Scottish Federation of Ratepayers and others, particularly about relief of increases which are large in percentage terms. Massive assistance to the relief of rates is given through rate support grant, and the residual burden does not appear to be unfairly distributed among ratepayers.
    Mr. Campbell: In the first instance, will my right hon. Friend be prepared to publish in Hansard the actual and percentage increases in the rates of the small burghs in this financial year? Will he look at the possibility of introducing transitional rating in the next financial year in the district councils?
    Mr. Ross: I will reply to my hon. Friend's last point first. A reversion to the old special district rating is just not on within the new set-up. It cannot be done.
    My hon. Friend suggested publication of actual and percentage increases in the small burghs. On 4th July I placed in the Library of the House a table showing the actual rates for 1974–75 and 1975–76 and the poundage increases involved for each of the old ratings of the small burghs. I will publish the figures in respect of the percentages, but I remind my hon. Friend that percentages do not always give the right impression of the actual weight of rates in any particular area.
    Mr. Fairbairn: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that small burghs had lower rates because they were more economically run and had fewer services? They still have fewer services. Will he do something to ensure that those that had fewer services in the past and that were economically run do not have to pay for the services of extravagant regional authorities that they do not have?
    Mr. Ross: What surprises me is that so many hon. Members opposite have so
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    suddenly come across something which was so basic to local government reorganisation. The whole basis of that reorganisation was to do away with the differences between town and country and to bring together a natural and extended community. Where there has been a reduction from over 240 to 65 rating authorities, it is inevitable that, in the process of creating uniformity of the rating system, there will be increases for some people, some of them quite high.
    Mr. MacCormick: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that, due to the action of the Conservative Government, all classes of people are now suffering from the changes in local government and that, particularly in the type of area mentioned by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Campbell), people in council houses are suffering very much?
    Mr. Ross: Let us be fair. There are certain factors. I was Secretary of State for some six years and took office again in March 1974, and I have a good memory of what has happened in local government reorganisation, with positions taken up and people learning about needs they would never have known about had they not been implicit in the reorganisation.
    This last year has been very difficult for the local authorities. Local authority services are very labour-intensive. I can remember the Opposition urging the needs in relation to teachers' and police salaries. But the buck must stop somewhere. When it comes to paying for these increases in local services, the ratepayer must bear the burden. One cannot have it every way. Added to that is that some local authorities prior to regionalisation ran down their reserves and handed nothing over to the new authorities.
    Inevitably, therefore, we get this grave artificial percentage increase, whereby someone who had an artificially low rate last year is meeting a higher rate this year. This, of course, is why we do not give assistance on the basis of supporting those with the highest percentaged increase. If we had done so, ratepayers such as those in Glasgow, who are the heaviest hit financially would not have got a penny. We fed a massive amount into the rate support grant giving the highest percentage ever—75 per cent., a total of

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    over £200 million, with the result that everyone got some advantage.
    Mr. Lambie: I congratulate the Government on the rate support grant of 75 per cent. The ever-increasing rate burden facing Scotland is due to two factors. The first is the increasing cost of local government reorganisation, for which the Labour Party had no responsibility. The second is the general inflation rate of 26 per cent. in spite of the tremendous efforts of the Government. Will my right hon. Friend make a supplementary estimate to increase the rate support grant to local authorities which are suffering from these factors, which were caused by Government and not by local councillors?
    Mr. Ross: I think that my hon. Friend should appreciate what I have already said on this subject. When we determined the rate support grant for the local authorities we struck upon a figure of likely expenditure. In fact, the local authorities have budgeted for £60 million more than that. Of course, the year has not ended and it does not end until the spring of next year. Although they have budgeted for £60 million, I have urged them not to spend that sum and to build up a reserve for rates for the future. I cannot accept everything that my hon. Friend says and I could not do what he asks of me.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the deputation that came to see him was shocked and appalled by his totally complacent and insensitive attitude to severe rate rises which could not have been anticipated? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his job is to fight for Scotland, and that he is failing in that job at every turn? Is it the case that the right hon. Gentleman told the deputation not only that he had failed to get an interim relief scheme, but that he had failed to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether such a scheme might be available for Scotland?
    Mr. Ross: We considered an interim relief scheme but we thought that it would be unfair to Scottish local authorities. For example, it might well have been the case that the hon. Gentleman's constituents would have received nothing from such a scheme. Indeed, they would probably have had to have paid higher rates to support the scheme to benefit
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    those with a rate poundage last year of about 50p. If the hon. Gentleman had been in my position, I think that he would have come to the same conclusion with a view to being fair to everyone concerned.

    Alloa
    Mr. Reidasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will pay an official visit to Alloa.
    Mr. Millan: My right hon. Friend has no plans at present to do so.
    Mr. Reid: Does the right hon. Gentleman not appreciate that the threatened closure of the Messrs. Donbros factory in Alloa is in that town the equivalent of a job loss of 45,000 in the Glasgow district? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that locally a decision has been made across party lines, and with trade union agreement, that the matter merits his personal attention? Will he take this opportunity to state his views on the threatened closure, the threatened removal of Scottish machinery, work and brand names to England and the lack of union consultation in advance of the closure notice? Will he confirm that he will continue to use his good offices to exert pressure on the main board of Messrs. Coats Patons to ensure that production capacity is retained at Lornshill, Alloa?
    Mr. Millan: I have already met the STUC, the unions involved, the managements of Coats Paton, Donbros and the hon. Gentleman. I was in touch with the unions again about this situation only today following a meeting which they had with the management yesterday. This is not a simple question of transferring work from Scotland to England, as I think the hon. Gentleman knows. In any case, Coats Paton is a Scottish controlled company. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the serious nature of the problem. The position is that decisions about redundancies and the closure were deferred so as to allow further negotiations to take place. Those negotiations are taking place. There was a meeting yesterday, but I understand that no solution has yet been found. However, all the factors involved, including the possibility of other work, are being considered at the moment. I have said to management and

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    to the trade unions that if there is anything I can do to help in this situation, I shall do it.

    Doctors
    Mr. Sillarsasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he proposes to increase the number of doctors in the Scottish Health Service.
    Mr. William Ross: A planned expansion of the number of places at Scottish medical schools is taking place and by 1979 the annual intake figure of medical students should be increased by 50. This will be sufficient to offset an anticipated reduction in the number of overseas doctors and to secure a net increase overall.
    Mr. Sillars: Nevertheless, will my right hon. Friend confirm that even if that position were reached we should still have a doctor shortage? Will my right hon. Friend consider seriously the position of young people who hold a non-medical first degree and who are refused grants to go to medical school? Is he aware that a number of working-class people in that position cannot go on to medical school? If we made an exception for people in that category, bearing in mind the possibility of a potential doctor shortage, we should go some way towards redressing the present balance.
    Mr. Ross: I think that it is wrong to talk about a doctor shortage in Scotland. In this context Scotland is reasonably well off as compared with England and Wales. The number of general practitioners in Scotland has been increasing annually. The result is that the average number of patients on doctors' lists has dropped to below 2,000. That is not the position elsewhere. I know that the hon. Gentleman has written letters about people who want to get into medical schools and who have already taken a degree course. It is a basic principle of the student award system that a candidate is assisted for one degree only. At present there are no vacancies—in other words, all the places have been taken up. Scotland meets more than its own needs in the training of doctors. Indeed, it meets the needs of other parts of the United Kingdom and other parts of the world as well.
    Mr. Rifkind: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the strong feelings of frustration and anger presently held by many
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    Scottish junior doctors? What representations has he made to ensure that the interests of the Scottish medical profession, and all Scottish medical interests, will be fully represented on the Royal Commission that the Prime Minister has appointed?
    Mr. Ross: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman knows this, but I was present at the meeting yesterday with the representatives of the profession. I can assure him that the Scottish aspects of the matter will be borne well in mind.
    Mr. Thompson: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that one way to increase the number of doctors in the Scottish health services would be to encourage them not to emigrate? Does he agree that he could do that by continuing with the hospital building programme and by continuing with the preparation of further phases at certain hospitals where the work is progressing in phases? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that that would be one way of increasing the number of doctors?
    Mr. Ross: An awful lot is being made of emigration, but the figures for the Scottish hospitals show that emigration this year is not as high as it was two years ago, and not as high as it was in the late 1960s. We must also take into account that some of those who are leaving Scotland were not born in Britain. The British born medical people who have emigrated overseas during the year ending 30th September 1975 amount to 48. Let us not make too much of this issue.
    Mr. Buchananasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress is being made in the planning and construction of the health centre in the Springburn constituency.
    Mr. McElhone: The Greater Glasgow Health Board has now determined the site for Springburn Health Centre, and preliminary sketch plans based on a revised schedule of accommodation should soon be available.
    Mr. Buchanan: I add my congratulations and best wishes to those heaped upon my hon. Friend, and deservedly so, since his appointment.
    Is my hon. Friend aware that in areas of redevelopment such as Springburn,

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    where massive redevelopment is taking place, doctors' surgeries are usually housed in tenemental property? Many tenement blocks are being acquired far in advance of the need for acquisition. They are cleared of tenants and allowed to stand derelict with the doctors' surgeries standing in splendid isolation. Is my hon. Friend aware that many of the patients attending such surgeries in the evening are afraid of the petty thief, the vandal and the mugger? Does my hon. Friend appreciate it is an urgent necessity to progress as speedily as possible towards the construction of a health centre in Springburn? I urge my hon. Friend so to do.
    Mr. McElhone: I am grateful for the kind and generous remarks that my hon. Friend has made about my appointment. I am also aware that he has been taking a great deal of interest in this project in his constituency.
    I must point out to my hon. Friend that part of the site is at present occupied by buildings due for demolition and that the district council has agreed to advance the date of their removal to accord with the health board regulations. The board hopes to be on the site in 1977, but the date on which construction starts will depend on progress at later planning stages as well as on economic circumstances, and, of course, whether the tenders for the work are such as can be approved.

    Teachers' Associations
    Mr. Robert Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next plans to meet the representatives of the teachers' associations in Scotland.
    Mr. William Ross: I have no immediate plans for such a meeting.
    Mr. Hughes: Will my right hon. Friend arrange for such a meeting at an early opportunity? Will he remind Scottish teachers how much money the Government have put into teachers' salaries and will he also make another attempt to get the EIS to call off its work-to-rule, which is damaging the education of so many Scottish children? Will he further tell them that many hon. Members, as well as people outside, regard with shame and abhorence the threat to extend the work-to-rule to schools for the physically or
    476
    mentally handicapped? Will he emphasise that such a suggestion reflects little credit on a profession which should have and claims to have at heart the well being of Scottish education?
    Mr. Ross: I have no desire to see the work-to-rule extended and I hope that wisdom will prevail. I agree with my hon. Friend's remarks about special schools. If there are any issues on which it would be valuable for me to have discussions with the associations, I shall be prepared to arrange such a meeting. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State who has just taken over responsibilities in this sphere has already had informal discussions with the union leaders and is meeting the EIS on 7th November.

    Dunfermline (Sports Complex)
    Mr. Adam Hunterasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has had regarding the allocation of investment for a proposed new sports complex in Dunfermline; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. McElhone: Representations have been received from both the former Dunfermline Town Council and the present Dunfermline District Council and my officials have recently discussed with the authority's officials possible modifications of the council's proposals. Whether investment can be allocated for any part of the project in 1976–77 will depend on the total investment available for recreational projects in Scotland, the relative needs of other authorities and the scale of Dunfermline's modified proposals.
    Mr. Hunter: I, too, wish to congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment. Is he aware that the only sports complex in Dunfermline is the public baths building, which is about 80 years old? Is he also aware that the building is unhygienic and, by modern standards, a fire hazard? Will he give a promise that he will visit the building in the near future?
    Mr. McElhone: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's opening words.
    The Dunfermline District Council submitted a report to my Department on 23rd September last. Following that report, the district council has been asked to furnish details of the work necessary to bring

    477
    the building up to satisfactory standards from a public safety and health point of view. When those proposals are received, they will be urgently considered. As for a visit to the building, my hon. Friend knows that I have been a guest in his area on other occasions and, if I have an opportunity to do so in the near future, I shall visit the area again.

    SCOTTISH ASSEMBLY
    Mr. Fairbairnasked the Lord Advocate if he will make a statement on the probable division of his official duties between the Scottish Assembly and the United Kingdom Parliament; and how many additional staff the establishment of a Scottish Assembly will require the Crown Office to recruit.
    Mr. Rifkindasked the Lord Advocate to what extent the work of his Department will be affected by the establishment of a Scottish Assembly with the powers set out in the Government's most recent White Paper on devolution policy.
    The Lord Advocate (Mr. Ronald King Murray): Like all other aspects of devolution, these matters are under consideration. As the hon. Gentlemen are aware, it is hoped to publish a further White Paper on devolution next month which will set out the Government's proposals in detail. It would be premature for me to express any views on the likely effect of devolution on the duties of my office or the work of my Departments.
    Mr. Fairbairn: Even though it might be premature for the Lord Advocate to anticipate what may happen to his Department in respect of the functions or duties of the Scottish Assembly, does he appreciate that it is important that the Assembly does not impose additional tax and staff burdens on the Scottish people? In anticipation of the White Paper, will he take steps either to prune the Department, if it is to be increased, or to make sure that these burdens do not apply?
    The Lord Advocate: The answer to the first part of the supplementary question is "Yes". The second part obviously must depend on the arrangements put forward by the Government in the White Paper.
    Mr. Rifkind: Will the Lord Advocate give an assurance that the future role and powers in his hands and in the hands of the Solicitor-General for Scotland will be spelt out in great detail next month in the White Paper on devolution? Will he also inform the House whether any consideration has been given to the possibility of some form of department of justice to ensure uniform progress of Scots law?
    The Lord Advocate: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that these are complex questions which are now under close examination. He and other hon. Members will have to await the White Paper.
    Mr. Grimond: As the Lord Advocate is aware, there is an acute shortage of legal advice in certain parts of Scotland, including my constituency. Will he bear that matter in mind when he considers the future of the legal arrangements in Scotland and ensure that if any extra work is created by a Scottish Assembly this aspect will be reconsidered?
    The Lord Advocate: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I take note of the point.
    Mr. Sillars: Will my right hon. and learned Friend arrange in the White Paper to give a detailed statement of present and future patronage powers of the Lord Advocate?
    The Lord Advocate: I must repeat that this is a complex and difficult matter which obviously will come under consideration. I take note of my hon. Friend's desire to probe deeply.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: What representations has the Lord Advocate received about the legislative needs of Scotland on law reform in view of the Cabinet backsliding reported in this morning's Scottish Press? What guidance has he given to other members of the Government about the importance of legislative reform by the Scottish Assembly?
    The Lord Advocate: I shall continue to give what advice and guidance I can on these matters. Representations about Scotland's legislative needs will clearly be considered along with all the other matters that I have mentioned.
    Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman

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    realise that all these questions and much expense will be avoided if we do not have an Assembly?
    The Lord Advocate: Yes, Sir.
    Mrs. Bainasked the Lord Advocate what further consideration he has given to priorities for law reform following the establishment of the Scottish Assembly.
    The Lord Advocate: I have nothing further to add to the reply given to the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) on 9th July last.
    Mrs. Bain: Is the Lord Advocate aware that there are those in this House who realise that he recognises the importance of an Assembly which can discuss law reform in Scotland? Will he bear in mind that since it appears unlikely that the present Government will give time to divorce law reform and to consideration of the recommendations of the Clayson Committee, reform should be made a matter of priority? Will he also bear in mind the possibilities of reviewing conveyancing laws with a view to reducing the costs of house purchase?
    The Lord Advocate: I recognise the hon. Lady's interest in law reform, which I share, as she was kind enough to recognise. However, this again is a matter that must await the White Paper. Clearly, if we are to have genuine devolution it would be wrong to set out what we believe to be the priorities for law reform.
    Mr. Rifkind: Does the Lord Advocate realise that the needs in many areas of Scots law reform cannot afford to wait until the Assembly is established, since it may be two years before that body is able to consider the matter? Will he accept that in the sphere of divorce law reform the Clayson Committee recommendations and many other recommendations of Lord Hunter's Commission are presently gathering dust, and that it is necessary for the Government, this Parliament and the Parliament to come in the near future to bring forward proposals for consideration?
    The Lord Advocate: Nothing I have said will make any difference to that situation. I was not suggesting that there was not a heavy responsibility on Westminster to deal with urgent matters of law reform. However, the hon. Gentleman must await the Queen's Speech.
    Mr. Henderson: We respect the desire to improve the law of Scotland and we are interested to hear when the Lord Advocate is to bring forward further proposals about land tenure reform to deal with such cases as affect some of my constituents who are tenants at will and who cannot obtain improvement grants because they do not have feudal tenure.
    The Lord Advocate: I can only take note of these matters, which are of great importance. The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that the Government are aware of the importance of these matters and of finding legislative time for them.

    SCOTTISH DIVORCE LAW
    Mr. Sproatasked the Lord Advocate what recent representations he has received regarding the reform of Scottish divorce law.
    The Lord Advocate: None, Sir.
    Mr. Sproat: Does not the Lord Advocate agree that the overwhelming opinion in Scotland today is that Scottish divorce law should be brought into harmony with English law? Will he undertake to bring the maximum pressure on his Cabinet colleagues to see that the Queen's Speech includes a specific pledge to give Government time to the reform of that law? Does he not agree that if this is not done, it will be an insult to the Scottish people on a subject that is so important for the happiness of so many, especially if it is said that no Government time can be given to the subject when we all know that on Friday we are to spend an unlimited time discussing the Hare Coursing Bill?
    The Lord Advocate: The hon. Gentleman exaggerates. I disagree that there is an overwhelming feeling among the Scottish public that there should be the kind of divorce reform he seeks. He is asking me to be a go-between between him and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. It appears that the hon. Gentleman is the only person who does not appreciate that legislation on this matter is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend. Perhaps he would find the Government's reply more fruitful if he directed his submissions to the Secretary of State.
    Mr. Robin F. Cook: Has the Lord Advocate had an opportunity to study the report of the Select Committee on Violence in Marriage? When do the Government hope to take a view on the recommendation of that Committee that a Bill dealing with Scottish divorce should be introduced as a matter of high Government priority?
    The Lord Advocate: I have read the report. However, I must answer the second part of that question by saying that it is not a matter for me.

UNEMPLOYMENT
Mr. Eyre: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"to examine the need for the Government to review their policies bearing upon and worsening unemployment in the United Kingdom."
In my submission the matter is specific in that Government figures published today show that the number of hard-core unemployed in the United Kingdom, adjusted on a seasonal basis, excluding school leavers and adult students, rose by 56,386 to 1,077,726—in excess of a million for the first time since the Second World War. When temporarily stopped workers are included, the final figure becomes even higher at 1,204,398. This month's unemployment total is 521,982 up on October of last year, when the Government undertook to restore and sustain full employment.
The matter is clearly of considerable importance since much productive effort is lost to the economy. Furthermore, the social consequences of persistent un employment which is developing in all the large urban and industrial areas of the country—
Mr. Speaker: Order. When the hon. Member is making his application, he must not make the sort of general speech he would make if the application were granted.
Mr. Eyre: I should emphasise in making this application that the vast
482
metropolitan areas of the West Midlands, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, and South and West Yorkshire, as well as Strathclyde and London, are particularly affected by the situation. The social consequences are causing great concern.
All the official figures given, including the fall in the number of notified vacancies by 11,461 this month to 131,969, show that the trend in unemployment throughout the United Kingdom is still sharply upwards. I submit that these figures and the disturbing human consequences underlying them support and justify the urgency of immediate consideration by this House.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member gave me due notice of his intention to make this application, and I have listened carefully to what he has had to say. My decision must not be construed by anyone as implying that I do not realise the importance of this problem. As a Merseyside Member, I know it full well. But it is a continuing problem, one which should certainly be debated in this House on repeated occasions but it is not one for which Standing Order No. 9 was drafted or intended. My answer—it is a procedural one and no more—must therefore be "No".

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
Ordered,
That the draft Cinematograph Films (Collection of Levy) (Amendment No. 4) Regulations 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Coleman.]
Ordered,
That the draft Cinematograph Films (Limits of Levy) Order 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr Coleman.]
Ordered,
That the draft Artificial Reproduction of Animals (Northern Ireland) Order 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Coleman.]
Ordered,
That the Export Guarantees (Limit on Commitments) Order 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Coleman.]

HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK ETC. (AMENDMENT)
3.33 p.m.
Mr. Doug Hoyle: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend Section 14 of the Health and Safety at Work etc., Act 1974, and for connected purposes.
I realise that in asking the House to grant me leave to introduce this Bill at this late stage in the Session I cannot expect the Bill to be passed before Parliament is prorogued. I bring the Bill forward because I believe that the procedures embodied in it are sufficiently important for them to be put into print. I hope that once that is done the Government will consider such procedures when considering legislation for the next Session.
My Bill is the result of co-operation between the parliamentary committees of ASTMS and the Transport and General Workers' Union. The reasons for this will become clear as I explain the purpose behind the Bill. I thank both of those committees for giving me the opportunity of introducing the Bill. It arises directly out of the Flixborough disaster of 1st June 1974 and the court of inquiry which followed that disaster.
The court of inquiry was directed by the Secretary of State for Employment under Section 84 of the Factories Act 1961. By directing it under that Act my right hon. Friend gave the court of inquiry the right not only to dictate its own procedures but also the right to choose the method by which those who were interested in the hearing should present their evidence to the court.
The court in its discretion decided that it would accept evidence only from parties who were legally represented. My union, ASTMS, submitted at that point that that could cause great hardship to small unions. My union lost two people in the disaster, while the TGWU lost more. Such a ruling by the court, it was claimed, could inhibit people from bringing forward their evidence because of the financial hardship they would suffer through having to be legally represented. The court overruled that submission.
The ASTMS and the TGWU considered the matters involved to be so important—in view of the numbers who
484
had been killed and seriously injured—that it was absolutely vital for the unions to be represented at the inquiry. Because of that we submitted a joint legal submission to the court. The court of inquiry found that the cause of the disaster was the fracture of a pipe connecting two reactors and that the explosion had resulted therefrom. Both of the reactors concerned were filled with steam-heated cyclohexane which was boiled by chemical processes in the individual reactor. Cyclohexane is akin to petrol in its chemical composition. It was being heated in the reactors to twice its normal boiling point.
I quote from the report of the court of inquiry, giving the reasons it found for the bursting of the bridging pipe. It said:
"The fact that the bridging of the gap presented design problems was not appreciated by anybody at Nypro with the result that there was no proper design study, no proper consideration of the need for support, no safety testing, no reference to the relevant British Standard and no reference to the boiler manufacturers 'design guide'."
These, the court of inquiry agreed, were all the responsibility of Nypro (UK) Ltd., the users of the plant. Despite the fact that Nypro was the guilty party, the unions and their members, who were found by the court to bear no responsibility for the disaster, were required to pay the cost of their representation. ASTMS and the TGWU were faced with legal costs amounting to over £23,000, plus £2,000 representing VAT.
To protect our members' interests it was necessary for us to be represented legally from the beginning of the hearing because unless we were so represented the court was not prepared to release to us any of the preliminary documents which would have shown whether any of our members were affected. The court allowed ASTMS, the TGWU and the British Association of Colliery Management—the three trade unions most concerned—to be represented on the ground that they or their members could be prejudicially affected during the course of the inquiry.
It has always been the contention of my association that the inquiry into the disaster should have been held, at any rate in the first place, not under the Factories Act but under the Boiler Explosions Act 1882. I shall not worry

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the House with the technical argument about that. Suffice it to say we argued the case for this at a preliminary hearing. If the inquiry had been conducted under the Boiler Explosions Act, different provisions on the awarding of costs would have applied.
It would appear that since the Flixborough disaster the Secretary of State for Employment has had Section 84 of the Factories Act 1961 and Sections 6 and 7 of the Boiler Explosions Act repealed, and that the only legislation under which future courts of inquiry will be held into disasters such as Flixborough is the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The object of this short Bill is to write into that Act provisions which were previously contained in the Boiler Explosions Act, providing for the payment of costs in certain circumstances by both the Government and the persons responsible for the explosion.
I hope that at some time in the future there will be an opportunity for the House to discuss the report of the inquiry into the Flixborough disaster in greater detail. But the principle I am trying to establish in the Bill is very important in itself. Its establishment would enable unions, irrespective of their size and financial resources, to take part as they should in public inquiries into disasters such as Flixborough, without the risk of having to pay enormous sums by way of costs for so doing.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Doug Hoyle, Mr. Frederick Willey, Mr. Ian Mikardo, Mr. Stan Thorne, Mr. Kevin McNamara, Dr. J. Dickson Mabon, Mr. Raymond Fletcher, Mr. Neil Kinnock, Mr. Eddie Wainwright, Mr. J. W. Rooker, Mr. Julius Silverman and Mr. Ron Thomas.

HEALTH AND SAFETY AT WORK ETC. (AMENDMENT)
Mr. Doug Hoyle Mr. Doug Hoyle accordingly presented a Bill to amend Section 14 of the Health and Safety at Work etc., Act 1974, and for connected purposes; and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 241.]

INDUSTRY BILL (ALLOCATION OF TIME)
3.42 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Gerald Kaufman): I beg to move,
That the Order [12th May] allocating time to the Industry Bill be supplemented as follows:—

1. The proceedings on Consideration of the Lords Amendments to the Industry Bill shall be brought to a conclusion at Midnight this day and the provisions of paragraph 7 of the Order of 12th May shall apply to the said proceedings with the substitution of two hours after Ten o'clock for one hour after Ten o'clock.

2. If, at the expiration of the period for which the proceedings on Consideration of the Lords Amendments may continue by virtue of paragraph 1 of this Order and the Order of 12th May, those proceedings have not been completed, then for the purpose of bringing those proceedings to a conclusion—

(a)Mr. Speaker shall first put forthwith any Question which has been already proposed from the Chair and not yet decided, and, if that Question is for the amendment of a Lords Amendment, shall then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in the said Lords Amendment or, as the case may be, in the said Lords Amendment as amended;

(b)Mr. Speaker shall designate such of the remaining Lords Amendments as appear to him to involve questions of Privilege and shall—

(i) put forthwith the Question on any Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown to a Lords Amendment and then put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown, That this House doth agree or disagree with the Lords in their Amendment or, as the case may be, in their Amendment as amended,

(ii) put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown That this House doth disagree with the Lords in a Lords Amendment,

(iii) put forthwith, with respect to each remaining Lords Amendment designated by Mr. Speaker, the Question That this House doth agree with the Lords in their Amendment, and

(iv) put forthwith the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in all the remaining Lords Amendments; and

(c) so soon as the House shall have agreed or disagreed with the Lords in any of their Amendments Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith a separate Question on any other Amendment moved by a Minister of the Crown relevant to such Lords Amendment.

487
I hope that the House will be spared from the Tory Opposition even the most mechanical, ritualistic noises about the motion. Parliament has debated the Bill exhaustively, not to say exhaustingly, with 142 hours of debate in this House and 50 hours in another place.
I must confess that there is a breach of precedent in having a timetable on Lords amendments. This is the first time ever that it has been done—by a Labour Government. The Conservatives have done it frequently, habitually, even addictively. Four times in their last period of office between 1970 and 1974 they had timetable motions on Lords amendments. They had them twice in one week in 1972, one of the Bills concerned being the Housing Finance Bill. Therefore, in making this precedent we are following the trail that the Tory Opposition have blazed. We are gradually learning from them how to conduct Government business in an orderly fashion.
If hon. Members point to the number of amendments before the House, I would point out that they are very few more than came from another place on the Housing Finance Bill and that we are allotting considerably more time than was allowed on the Lords amendments to that Bill. In any case, most of these amendments are uncontroversial, drafting amendments—technical amendments, consequential amendments, even corrections of printing errors.
There are only nine substantial areas of disagreement. These are areas where a non-elected Chamber has arrogated to itself not its traditional revising role but the rejection of basic principles on which the Government have a specific mandate from the electorate. Those principles have pretty well all been debated in this House ad nauseam. Today we have eight further hours if the House agrees to the motion, as I invite it to do.
Mr. Michael Heseltine: I have no intention of detaining the House for long, although I thought that the Under-Secretary—in the, I take it, temporary absence of the Secretary of State—made a curiously defensive speech about the Government's behaviour. We all know that the Labour Party in opposition is prepared to disrupt the business of the House without any sense of responsibility. It was as a response to
488
that that the then Conservative Government took the necessary measures to secure the Government's business, which is a time-honoured precedent, practised by all parties.
Perhaps the House will have been mildly surprised by what the hon. Gentleman said, because every hon. Member will have read the very different explanation given by Lord Beswick from the Government Front Bench in another place of the way in which the industry Bill came to the Lords and the role of the Lords in dealing with it. I should like to read from the Hansard of another place so that the words of the Undersecretary may be set in context against the words of the Minister of State in the same Department. The noble Lord said on 16th October:
"I should like to make the point that of those 180 Amendments up to Report stage only 51 were tabled by noble Lords opposite."—
that is, by the Opposition.
"If there are criticisms—as I believe there have been from some of my friends in another place—about the way this Bill has been savaged by noble Lords, and I shall say a little about that, the fact is that the majority of the Amendments have arisen because the Bill was inadequate when it reached us. It shows credit to noble Lords on all sides that they have contrived to put right so many of the shortcomings that arose, I believe, because the Bill was not properly considered in another place."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16th October 1975; Vol. 364, c. 1077.]
Perhaps the House will want to balance the advice from the Minister of State and the advice it has now received from the Under-Secretary.
The reality of the situation is that under the machinery of the guillotine this House is passing legislation which is ill-considered. The Bill was subjected to a totally unwarranted guillotine in the first place, and it is not surprising that the Government spokesman in another place had to concede the work that it was necessary for their Lordships to do in order to rectify the failings of the Commons.
Because we are now subject to a guillotine, however, I have no intention of doing other than to recommend to my hon. Friends that we should make the best of a bad job, that we should use what time the Government have condescended to give us by accepting this totally inadequate proposal, and give the

489
maximum possible time to debating the issues before us.
3.49 p.m.
Mr. J. Grimond: I have no desire to delay the House, but two points should be made before we pass the motion.
First, a Government with only 38 per cent. of the votes cannot have a mandate for anything, and they must realise that they are a minority Government. If the Opposition were better co-ordinated, the Government would have a much rougher life in this place.
Secondly, there have been complaints from all parts of the House, including members of the Minister's own party, about the present handling of business—the number of Bills and the number of Government amendments to them that have to be tabled, the general confusion which has resulted and the fact that we and the Lords have been sitting by night and day. I ask the Minister to ask the Leader of the House once again to hurry on with his consideration of how the handling of business can be improved.
3.50 p.m.
Mr. Douglas Crawford: My party was not represented in the Commons Standing Committee which discussed this Bill, in spite of urgent and sustained representations in the appropriate quarters. We have many reservations about the Bill. We have had only one opportunity to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, and that was on Second Reading. We believe that the Bill confirms our worst fears that the National Enterprise Board will have powers to operate in Scotland. It is shocking that the party which is now the second party in Scotland has not had an opportunity to make its views known on this issue, and I view the motion with grave seriousness.
Question put and agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  INDUSTRY BILL
  Lords amendments considered.
  Lords Amendment: No. 1, in page 1, line 4, at end insert "PART I".
  3.51 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Gerald Kaufman): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we are to discuss Lords Amendments Nos. 29, 90, 95 and 155.
  Mr. Kaufman: This group of amendments is designed to make the Bill easier to follow.
  Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1

  THE NATIONAL ENTERPRISE BOARD
  Lords Amendment: No. 2, in page 1, line 11, leave out "six" and insert "eight".
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we are to discuss Lords Amendments Nos. 3 and 4.
  Mr. Kaufman: In Committee in this House the Government resisted the suggestion that the minimum number of Board members should be increased from six to eight. We pointed out that, unlike most public corporations, the National Enterprise Board will build up its activities progressively. Provision had been made deliberately for a relatively small Board at the beginning which would then build up as the Board's activities expanded. At that time Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited was the only major shareholding to be vested in the Board. The situation has now changed. The NEB will have responsibility for the Government's major investment in British Leyland as well as Rolls-Royce. That being so, we feel it right to accept the amendment.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 5, in page 2, line 9, leave out from "as" to first "the" in line 11.
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we are to discuss Lords Amendments Nos. 6 and 17.
  Mr. Kaufman: These were Government amendments inserted in another place to improve upon a Government amendment dealing with the constitutional position of the NEB which was made on Report stage in this House. The Bill has always provided that the NEB would not normally be a servant or agent of the Crown, but without explicit provision it would not have been wholly clear that actions taken by the Board under Clause 3 on the direction of the Secretary of State were taken by the Board as principals as was intended. However, the amendment made in this House on Report that the board
  "is not to be regarded…as the servant or agent…of any Government department"
  went rather too wide and could have been unduly restrictive. It might have been held to prevent the Board ever acting as the agent of the Department of Industry. For example, it would have prevented the Board acting as the Department's agent in conducting an examination of an industry or company such as the sort of work undertaken by Lord Ryder in his report on British Leyland. Such a restriction was not intended, and this amendment is designed to clarify that.
  Mr. Tom King: Is the Under-Secretary satisfied that the new amendment covers the point contained in the Government's new clauses inserted in the Lords under which the Board could act as agent for the Ministry of Overseas Development?
  Mr. Kaufman: Yes.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendment agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 7, in page 2, line 19, leave out "Board "and insert "Secretary of State".
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we are to discuss Lords Amendments Nos. 8, 23, 181, 182 and 183.
  Mr. Kaufman: Hon. Members will recall that when the Government accepted an amendment on Report to provide for the registration of the financial interests of NEB members, it was made clear that the provision would probably need to be tidied up in another place. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith), whose presence today I note, acknowledged that it would be necessary if I accepted his amendment for us to look at it again in another place.
  The amendments that we have found it necessary to make are small. The Government feel that it is more appropriate for the Secretary of State than for the Board itself to maintain the register, since it is the Secretary of State who has to satisfy himself under the provisions of Schedule 1(1) that members have no financial interests likely to affect prejudicially the performance of their functions as members.
  It also seems appropriate that the register of interests should be published to Parliament each year. There is therefore provision for it to be annexed to the Board's annual report which must be laid before both Houses of Parliament by the Secretary of State.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendment agreed to.

Clause 2

  GENERAL PURPOSES AND FUNCTIONS
  Lords Amendment: No. 9, in page 2, line 27, after first "the" insert "development or".
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we are to discuss Lords Amendment No. 10, in page 2, line 32, after "of" insert "productive".
  Mr. Kaufman: It was suggested in another place that the Board's first purpose—
  "the assistance of the economy of the United Kingdom"—
  had insufficiently positive connotations. It was suggested that the word "development" might be incorporated. That does not narrow the Board's purposes in any way.
  I cannot see that Lords Amendment No. 10 serves any particularly useful purpose, although great weight was attached to it in another place and the Government have no strong reasons to oppose it. The point that it seeks to make is already implicit in the totality of the Bill's original provisions. We have no particular attachment to the original wording, which was taken from the Conservatives' Industry Act 1972.
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I should read into Lords Amendment No. 10 the connotation that it aligns itself with productive industries or index-of-production industries, and that might have some effect on other industries which might otherwise fall within the provision. I have an interest in tourist industries and that sort of thing, and the provisions could cut across them.
  Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Member's fears are not founded. We have managed to accommodate his views about mining and quarrying later in the Bill.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendment agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 11, in page 2, line 35, leave out "establishing"
  The Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Eric G. Varley): I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we are to discuss the Lords Amendments Nos. 12 and 14.
  Mr. Varley: These amendments are based on a doctrinaire opposition to public enterprise which strikes at the very heart of the Bill. They would remove the Board's powers to set up new industrial enterprises and form new companies, and
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  these are essential powers if the NEB is to make a fully effective contribution to the regeneration of British industry.
  If these powers are deleted, the NEB will be crippled in its efforts to improve industrial efficiency and to tackle unemployment, particularly in the assisted areas of England. The powers to establish new undertakings are in the Bill particularly to enable the NEB to build new factories and bring new jobs to areas of the country with the highest level's of unemployment.
  Existing legislation, such as the Industry Act 1972, has had its successes, but despite 30 years of regional measures there remain areas with seemingly intractable problems where it has proved extremely difficult to attract desperately needed private investment.
  The NEB will be able to complement the incentives and controls of regional policies pursued by successive Governments by assessing in a rational way and without the prejudice which is so often shown by private industry whether its new investment can be sited in areas of greatest need. Hon Members who have in their constituencies areas of severe unemployment and deprivation will appreciate the significance of the powers which the other place is attempting to remove.
  4.0 p.m.
  Fears that the powers to establish new enterprises will be used to undermine the private sector through unfair competition are wholly misplaced. The National Enterprise Board will be subject to proper commercial discipline. The Bill specifically permits the setting up of separate financial objectives for different categories of activity so as to ensure that activities such as the establishing of new enterprises can be separated and set appropriate objectives. The guidelines for the Board will require it to avoid showing undue preference in its trading relationships.
  Perhaps I might also say something specifically about Lords Amendment No. 12. The NEB's function of extending public ownership into profitable areas of manufacturing industry was stated quite clearly in our White Paper "The Regeneration of British Industry", and set out again in the Labour Party's manifesto at the last General Election. Our policy was quite unambiguous and we

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  were elected to carry it out. Their Lordships' proposal to strike out of the Bill elements crucial to the Government's strategy for British industry and for the employment prospects of the British people is entirely unacceptable.
  Like the power to establish new undertakings, which their Lordships sought to remove, a stake in profitable manufacturing industry is needed if the board is to fulfil its purposes, particularly the purpose of creating new employment. Only from a base in profitable manufacturing industry can the NEB itself take new initiatives to develop new industrial capacity in the areas of greatest need.
  The NEB will need to acquire an interest in several significant companies with strong potential for profitable and successful expansion. It is only right that the NEB should acquire 100 per cent. of the equity capital in appropriate cases so as to avoid conflicts between the Board's objectives and the interests of private shareholders. This was all fully debated in the House and was set out in the White Paper.
  Never before has public enterprise had the opportunity to compete on equal terms with the private sector. The NEB's companies will have no special privileges, but, equally, they will have no special shackles, such as the Opposition have tried to devise. The NEB will have the opportunity to demonstrate that a concern for the public interest is not incompatible with profitability and efficiency.
  Mr. Michael Heseltine: Perhaps the House will not have failed to miss the charm of the advice given by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) from the Liberal benches in suggesting a greater degree of co-ordination in Opposition tactics, in that I rise, in the absence of any Member of his party whatsoever, to take part in that process.
  This is a debate, as the Secretary of State for Industry recognises, that we have had in the House on many previous occasions in various forms.
  I agree with the analysis of the Secretary of State that it is the purpose of the amendments that we are discussing to restrict the NEB in a way that would prevent it from taking over—presumably by
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  making bids on the open market at inflated prices—profitable and, therefore, successful public companies. Such action, in the view of my hon. Friends and myself, would be likely to have a wholly deterrent effect, out of all scale with the benefit to the economy that it is likely to achieve, because it would perpetuate the dialogue which was conducted by the right hon. Member's predecessor about the relationship of the State to private industry, and which actually led to the removal of the right hon. Member's predecessor and his own appointment to undertake this task.
  Unless the Government are prepared to make up their mind whether they genuinely want what they frequently describe as a prosperous and thriving private sector, with clear divides, we shall simply end up with the worst of all possible worlds.
  The Secretary of State's hon. Friends understand that with exactly the same clarity as I express it. They understand that to try to make a mixed economy work with an inefficient public sector and a shackled private sector is a meaningless posture to adopt, but that is the task which this Government have set themselves. While they may well pay lip-service to the concept of a clear divide, in reality, when any decision comes to be taken, the clear divide has persistently moved a little further in the direction of the left wing of the Labour Party.
  The Secretary of State for Industry tells us—and his colleagues in another place have told us—that there are to be clear guidelines. My hon. Friends and I find it difficult to understand why the clear guidelines have not been allowed to see the light of day during the discussions which have taken place at great length about the various provisions of this Bill.
  The Secretary of State for Industry understands as clearly as I do that the guidelines for today are by no means guaranteed as the guidelines for tomorrow. What a Government can dispose by way of a generalised issue of intent from 1 Victoria Street can equally well be replaced with a quite different set of guidelines under the responsibility of a different and successive Minister. Therefore, it really is no assurance at all to anyone to be told that there will be

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  some ad hoc document which it will be convenient for the Government to produce at a particular political moment, unless people can be convinced that it will represent the long-term strategy behind the Government's industrial policy.
  It is because, in reality, we have moved from the situation of a few months ago, when there was an industrial policy—however repugnant it might have been to me and my hon. Friends—to the situation today, where there is simply no industrial policy at all, that we have not actually seen the level of confidence in British industry move upwards. Indeed, if anything, it has continued to move downwards, despite the change of direction that we were promised when the right hon. Gentleman took up his present appointment.
  Mr. Varley: Who promised that?
  Mr. Heseltine: I am asked by the Secretary of State for Industry to say who promised a change of direction. The whole tenor of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speeches is that there is now to be a new industrial policy. The whole initiative for the NEDC conference scheduled for next month is that a new document is to be produced which will indicate a new way forward.
  I shall not seek to describe the words used by Members on the Government side to indicate their policy, but let us have no doubt that everybody is aware today that a massive re-think is taking place in Government, and has been discussed outside Government with the various institutions concerned, in order to find another way forward for industry. That is what is happening. That is what the Secretary of State for Industry has been doing since he took up his task. We all look forward to the publication of the document, because we can certainly do with an improvement of the climate within which industry is to operate.
  The Secretary of State for Industry knows as well as I do that he is now looking again at the basic assumptions upon which the initial Green Paper, the initial White Paper, and much of the thinking of Labour Members was based, and which underlay the great revisionist view which brought this party to power.
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  I am concerned at the absence from the Secretary of State's speech of any factual justification for the assertions that he makes. I understand the political reasons why the National Enterprise Board should be given aggressive powers of take-over. I well understand the basic concept of the transfer of power from the private to the public sector. That is the underlying view of many of his hon. Friends, and that is very clearly expressed. But I should have thought that the main preoccupation of the Labour Party today would be with how to improve the performance of British industry, for without that we shall not see a revival of confidence, or any improvement in the real standards of the British people, which have been sinking, relative to our main competitors, for two decades or more. In the end, we should be concerned with performance.
  If that is generally agreed across the House, perhaps I may move on to the second question which must pre-occupy the Secretary of State. Why should State ownership be likely to improve performance faster and more effectively than private ownership? If the Secretary of State had tried to answer those questions, we could have conducted a real dialogue. No one can claim for any system the results its supporters always hope for, but over any recent period it is more likely that the State ownership of industry has led to bad results than the reverse.
  Therefore, when the Secretary of State argues this case, he argues a political and not an economic case. It is an important part of government, for instance, to remain at one remove from the management's decisions of industry—and not just because, every so often, some Minister, for all sorts of reasons, will make the wrong decision. My complaint against the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor is not that the idea of supporting co-operatives was a bad one. The co-operative movement has been underused in this country and it may be a way of harnessing people's enthusiasm to their benefit and that of the country. My complaint is that his predecessor used ministerial discretion to make bad managerial judgments.
  If the Secretary of State for Energy was responsible for creating the Scottish Daily News and Robert Maxwell for

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  managing it, we are entitled to be sceptical about the outcome. If the previous Secretary of State for Industry, against all the available advice, decided to back a three-factory solution for our motor cycle industry, it can be no surprise that two of those factories are now in the hands of the receiver, within months of his decision. [Interruption.] It is no use Labour Members trying to confuse the issue by reacting from sedentary positions. They must understand that the jobs of thousands of British workers have been severely prejudiced by the intervention of politicians under their Government in the motor cycle industry.
  Mr. John Lee: Stripped of the verbiage, is not the right hon. Gentleman saying that if there is to be Government control it must be a stage further removed so as to be less effiective? Either the Government intervene and intervene effectively or they do not intervene at all. Is not his position wholly false, therefore?
  Mr. Heseltine: I believe that the workers of Wolverhampton and Small Heath would think not that I was indulging in verbiage but that what I have said comes closer to their real problems than what many Labour Members say. I am saying that it is important for Governments not to be so committed to management that they are locked into certain positions. They can do that only by having management controlled by regulations, but at one remove. The moment that that frontier is crossed the political instinct usually overtakes the economic, in an effort to preserve a political posture, not an economic one. That is likely to delay change and the solution of the dilemma of British industry and to slow down the process of adaptation that we have to undergo.
  But it is not the mismanagement of one set of co-operative decisions which is of prime concern. In other areas where Governments have become involved in the ownership of industry—Labour Members will have to produce counter factual evidence—this has led, often for what seems to be good political reasons, to the slowing down of the momentum of those industries and the injection of political decisions into their problems in a way which has ill served the nation,
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  The classic and most recent example is that of the steel industry. We all understood why the investment programme was held up—because the Government believed that they had a political opportunity at the time of the first General Election in 1974 to appeal to many of the workers in that industry. As a result, workers throughout the rest of industry are still suffering from the under-modernisation of the steel industry, which the next time that the pressure is on will not be able to supply the steel we need at the quality we demand for a price competitive with the rest of the world. That will prejudice workers throughout British industry for the short-term benefit of some of the workers in the British steel industry.
  4.15 p.m.
  A more recent issue with which the right hon. Gentleman himself has had to deal is that of British Leyland. Perhaps the most surprising indication of the dilemma came last Monday when the Secretary of State was asked what he expected to be the rate of return from British Leyland and he had to explain that that would be a matter for the directors, that it was not his decision. Presumably, he will make available large sums of taxpayers' money but leave decisions to the directors.
  What the Secretary of State does not understand is that directors left without any pressure from shareholders or the market or outside forces cannot be expected to seek to maximise the returns which flow from their investment. It has in the last resort to be a function of owners to decide what return they expect to achieve. I do not blame the right hon. Gentleman for his inability to apply this but merely ask him to ponder it. He simply has not the commercial expertise to make a judgment about the sort of returns that British Leyland should earn, but has to rely entirely upon the board of directors. That is not the way to achieve the best returns for the motor industry or the higher living standards of those engaged in it.
  Wherever one looks in the private sector, despite the fine promises of performance by Ministers, when the accounts have been presented this House has had to pick up the tabs. Year after year

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  publicly-owned industries have shown unfavourable returns when compared with the private sector. It is worth asking the right hon. Gentleman whether he can tell us of one industry in the public sector which in any consistent period has earned a decent rate of return on capital employed.
  Mr. John Tomlinson: How was that objective assisted by the consistent interference by the hon. Gentleman's party when in government with the pricing mechanisms of the nationalised industries?
  Mr. Heseltine: That is a serious question and it would be easy to run away from facing the consequences of what happened then. The last Conservative Government tried to reach agreement with the unions on a counter-inflation policy, part of which deal was that there would be restraint on public sector prices. The consequence was that that restraint remained but the Labour Party encouraged the unions to believe that there was not need for restraint on their side. As a result, we had 27½ per cent. inflation while public sector deficits remained—
  Mr. Tomlinson: You did it.
  Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman keeps trying to make narrow party points while I am trying to point to one of the fundamental dilemmas facing this country. How are we to persuade the British people that if they want a public sector it has to be paid for, either through increased taxes or by commercial pricing?
  If the hon. Member is satisfied that the British people understand or that we have been fair in explaining to them, he would be surprised to be involved in a dialogue in which, every time a Government tried to increase public sector prices, they were opposed by the Opposition—of both parties. It is a fundamental weakness that that is one of the major imperatives which make it hard for Governments to follow realistic commercial pricing—and that applies to Governments of both parties.
  The explanations that the right hon. Gentleman has given us for the need and the political and economic justification for the NEB are wholly inadequate. But more germane to the contradiction of
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  advice given by his Government is whether he agrees with Lord Beswick, who, when asked why successful companies should be taken over, far from the rhetoric of the Secretary of State today, said:
  "The answer to that question is that successful firms will not be taken over: successful firms, if they do not need regeneration, will not receive the kind of regeneration provided for in this Bill."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21st July 1975: Vol. 363, c. 133]
  Who is right—is it the Minister of State or the Secretary of State? I believe that it will turn out to be the Secretary of State who is right, but the position should be clarified because clearly, from the record of Hansard in another place, the Minister of State has laid it on the line that successful companies have nothing to worry about. If they are able to sustain themselves, they are free from any threat from the National Enterprise Board. If that is so, there is no case for the House to disagree with the Lords amendment. We are seeking to lay down legally that the Minister of State's assurance is built into the statute.
  I cannot understand how the Secretary of State for Industry believes that using the powers of the National Enterprise Board to buy up Scottish and Welsh companies, which are profitable in their own right and based for their power operation in Scotland or Wales, would improve the position if they found their ownership transferred from the countries in which they operate to London. We have not had a word of explanation about that from the Secretary of State. I am sure that it is something which the Under-Secretary will want to explain when he comes to reply.
  We were told of the proper commercial disciplines and the fact that there will be nothing except fair and proper competition with the private sector. Those are contradictions in terms. It is totally impossible to give to the National Enterprise Board unlimited access to public funds at a rate of return which the Secretary of State is unable to explain in advance as a laid-down standard for the rate of return on capital, and then to talk about realistic and fair competition with the private sector.
  The ultimate discipline in the private sector is the existence of funds. If the

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  funds run out, the companies are constrained in what they can do. In the public sector there is no such constraint. If, as will be the case, the rates of return on public money are decided upon not in advance but in arrear, when the results are available and can be rationalised after the event, there can never be fair and realistic competition between the public and private sectors.
  I should like to mention briefly the suggestion which underlines the whole of the case which the Secretary of State has put forward, namely, that the private sector has failed because it has invested on an insufficiently large scale. I ask the Secretary of State whether he intends to publish the evidence now available to him from the NEDC organisation about the rate or return on British manufacturing industry over the past decade or so. That evidence indicates that the rates of return are inadequate to attract new investment when compared, on the international scene, with our major competitors.
  There is no way, no Government mechanism and no science known to Ministers that will be able to attract investment to industry unless the prospects of adequate profit exist. This is not only the view of the Governor of the Bank of England, because, although he spelt it out clearly at the Mansion House last week, it is also the view of the Government's advisers. Unless the Government are prepared to recognise that and explain how they intend to regenerate the private sector's ability to earn money, there is no palliative available to the nation's industry through any device of the Government, let alone the National Enterprise Board.
  The reality is that even if the whole of the resources of the NEB were spent in one year, they would not be sufficient to make up for the fall in investment that has followed partially as a consequence of the world economic crisis and partially as a consequence of the political activities and speeches of certain members of the Government.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that there has been a strike of capital because of the advent of a Labour Government? Is he saying
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  that there is a conspiracy of the holders of capital against us?
  Mr. Heseltine: I know that what the hon. Gentleman said sounds right in the constituencies, but this is the critical underlying dilemma of the country. That sort of approach is part of the banalities that have gone on in the House for 20 years. Unless we can begin to understand that the only way in which this nation can seek a higher standard of living it to get a higher rate of return upon the nation's assets, whether through the public or the private sector, we shall continue to drift compared with our other advanced economic competitors.
  It is no use trying to introduce expressions like "The strike of capital" and "The march of the bosses overseas", because that is simply to spit in the wind of economic forces.
  Mr. Brian Sedgemore: That is what the hon. Gentleman was saying.
  Mr. Heseltine: There is a major political divide between Labour Members who sit on the bench below the Gangway and myself. I believe that for the economic recovery of the country a much greater understanding of our underlying issues by all politicians in all parties will be necessary. If we continue to try to seek the maximum division as opposed to the maximum agreement, we shall perpetuate the wounds which have done so much to bring the country to the relative state of poverty which it has achieved.
  At least we knew the views of the previous Secretary of State for Industry. His views quite clearly stood with those of his hon. Friends below the Gangway. He was against the private sector, against private enterprise and against a capitalist system—indeed, anything that contributed to its downfall was fair game for him. At present we have a Secretary of State for Industry who, I hope, will reverse that trend. However, he has given no indication yet that he has understood the essential need to give industry the opportunity to earn sufficient and adequate profit. It is as though, under the previous régime in the Department of Industry, like Antony he came to bury Caesar, not to praise him. Now we have the mortician trying to dress up the corpse.
  Mrs. Judith Hart: I should like to seek to maximise the areas of agreement between the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) and myself. This may be a rather unusual course, as he has taken a very ideological Conservative approach to the whole question. However, I believe that there are two or three matters he mentioned on which certainly I should find no difficulty in agreeing. I know it may be a little disconcerting to the hon. Gentleman to hear me say this, but nevertheless I shall do so.
  What underlies a great deal of what he said was that we are talking about the prospects and potential for British industrial success. That means success in full employment, in exports and in recreating a thriving industrial sector, especially in manufacturing in this country. He and I would have no basic disagreement about that as an objective.
  The hon. Gentleman went on to say that it was therefore a matter of the performance of British industry. Again, I do not disagree that this is about the performance of British industry. However, after that point we begin to part company—and we do so not so much in terms of what the Bill is proposing as in terms of the analysis which has given rise to the Bill and to Labour Members' views that we must have, on the one hand, the National Enterprise Board and, on the other hand, a system of planning agreements. The analysis is the key, because the whole Labour industrial strategy arises from our analysis.
  It is probably fair to assume that the hon. Gentleman's analysis and that of his hon. Friends indicates that we are living in a world in which the medium-sized firm is still crucial to the investment performance of the British economy, and that the small firm is still of considerable importance—in other words, the view of the entrepreneurial significance of British industry as it truly was some 20 to 25 years ago. If one examines the situation as it was 20–25 years ago, one finds that a great deal of what the hon. Gentleman has said would have much more validity then. However, it seems to me that the hon. Gentleman and their Lordships have totally overlooked—I refer to the omission of paragraph (c)—the principle that the NEB may extend
  "public ownership into profitable areas of manufacturing industry".
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  4.30 p.m.
  And that the analysis is now totally different. The hon. Gentleman may refer to whichever documents or analyses he likes, but he will find that today we live in an economy in which most of the significant economic decisions about the level of investment, exports, pricing policies and regional job creation are made by a comparatively small number of large conglomerates which control innumerable numbers of subsidiaries, most of which are unrecognisable to the general public as subsidiaries of conglomerates. I am sure that he is familiar with the analysis presented by the Labour Party two or three years ago, which showed that 50 per cent. of our manufacturing industry was controlled by 100 key firms. The latest figures show that 40 per cent. of our exports are controlled by 30 leading firms in this country.
  Mr. Heseltine: The point which the right hon. Lady misses is that, although her statistics may be true, the decisions on pricing policies are controlled not by these relatively few companies but by their competitors, which are much more numerous.
  Mrs. Hart: The hon. Gentleman poses an interesting question. I was about to say that as an economy—this point has come to public attention—we are five times more multinational than most of our major competitors—for example, Germany and Japan. A high proportion of our leading conglomerates have a multi-national dimension. The significance of that is that decisions about investment and pricing and, therefore, employment in the regions, and so on—and with a multi-national dimension the element of transfer pricing looms larger than whatever the Chancellor of the Exchequer is doing in this country—are determined more by what is happening in the international money markets—the Eurodollar market, Wall Street and the Bourse—than by the Treasury.
  The conclusion that we have reached, and which underlies this strategy, is that it is no longer possible to attempt, as both Conservative and Labour Governments have done during the last 15 years, to exercise a degree of planning control over the major national economic decisions through the old and well-respected

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  methods of Keynesian demand management. A large conglomerate with a multinational dimension is more responsive to factors outside Britain than to what the Chancellor decides to do about hire-purchase deposits, hire-purchase rates, and so on.
  I do not think that the Opposition will find any evidence to contradict the analysis that an enormous concentration of British industry is in very few hands. If the analysis is correct, we need a new method or strategy to influence the development of the British economy. Unless the hon. Member for Henley is saying that it should be no part of the function of British Governments to seek to influence the economic well-being of the nation and is totally rejecting every kind of intervention, including Treasury demand management policies—I cannot conceive that he is saying that—he must be saying that it is the duty of the Government to seek to influence the major economic planning decisions of industry as a whole. If the analysis of the current breakdown of ownership in British industry, as I have presented it is correct, it follows that the old methods are not enough and that new methods must be found. We then face the question: what should those new methods be?
  I believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite and their Lordships have not understood the basis of the Bill, the basis of the White Paper on the regeneration of British industry, and the basis of Labour Party policies. They have seen them in narrow ideological terms as dealing with the basic transfer of power from the private to the public sector. That is part of it, but the major part is that this is the only strategy, given the present structure of ownership in British industry, to exercise a degree of effective control over the major elements of economic decision-making.
  We must not move into the management of factories and companies, nor interfere with the technological and management expertise on the factory floor, but we must move into the boardrooms in Throgmorton Street and Threadneedle Street, which are more responsive to interests outside this country than to the interests of the British people.
  This amendment must be rejected. We must have effective control, which means
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  ownership. It need not be 100 per cent. ownership; it can be whatever element of ownership gives us the capacity to control the economic decision-making of the conglomerate in manufacturing industry, because that is where our future success lies. We must move into the leading sectors of industry. Therefore, the National Enterprise Board must have the power to move into profitable manufacturing industry.
  Mr. Tom King: Does the right hon. Lady recognise that a price has to be paid for State control or public ownership and that that price is putting the Government in direct confrontation with industry in certain situations? Does she not recognise that if the benefits and the achievement of national objectives in economic planning could be obtained not by control but by influence and persuasion, that would be preferable?
  Mrs. Hart: The strategy adopted here is the consequence—[Interruption.] I do not agree that we have not tried—of a total failure to achieve this over the last 15 years. Successive Governments have tried persuasion. They have tried Keynesian demand management techniques. They have offered the carrot and the stick, and incentives to investments. But where are we? I do not want to go into this matter at length, because it takes me too wide and I shall go on too long, or into the question of whether profit is the only or the major incentive. We are in 22nd place out of 24 OECD countries in the level of our investment. We are right down at the bottom of the list.
  Tried and tested methods have failed. We need a new strategy. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to give this matter one further thought. Are they so sure that if they now had the chance to operate their methods the result would be a revival of investment and success in British industry and exports? I do not think they can be so sure, because, on their past experience, their methods have not worked. Therefore, we need a new approach. This involves—we are pleased that it does—an extension of public ownership. We believe in the principle of public ownership, but we must see it in two ways. We must see it as not only a matter of principle but as the only viable strategy for industrial success for Britain. I believe that if we had a full

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  opportunity to argue these matters out without the pretension of the ideological battleground, we might even convince a few hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  Mr. Douglas Crawford: An article in a Scottish national newspaper this morning said that the Cabinet would be meeting on Friday to discuss devolution and that the question whether to bring forward the White Paper would be a knife-edge decision. I hope this will not be so, and that the Government will honour their pledge to set up a Scottish Assembly with powers. But after last night, when, on the Report stage of the Scottish Development Agency (No. 2) Bill, those advocates of giving the SDA industrial and economic powers, the hon. Members for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie). South Ayrshire (Mr. Sillars) and Paisley (Mr. Robertson) voted against an SNP amendment to this effect, one must doubt the good will and honesty of the Government. We have not had a categorical assurance from the Government that the NEB will not operate in Scotland. I attended a conference at Aviemore two or three weeks ago at which the Chairman of the Board said that it would operate in Scotland. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) seems to think it would be a good thing for the Board to operate in Scotland.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: I disagree with the hon. Member when he objects to the Board operating in Scotland. I hope it will operate in parallel with the Scottish Development Agency. The basic error of the hon. Member and his colleagues in the SNP is to imagine that the problems of the Scottish economy can be solved solely in a Scottish and a capitalist context and not in an all-United Kingdom Socialist context.
  Mr. Crawford: I am not a Socialist of a Conservative; I am a Scottish National, and I am not going to get involved in a Socialist debate. The hon. Member would like to see a London-based agency operating in Scotland. My hon. Friends and I would not.
  If there is to be an agency carrying out dogmatic policies—it is up to the people of Scotland to decide whether it should—it ought to be a Scottish-based agency, responsible to the people of Scotland. I presume that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North is aware of the
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  Scottish Council's report on centralisation in 1969, when it said that as positions of authority within industry diminished, the quality of life in the community ran down. Since then, there has been no cessation in the process of centralisation, and there has been a decrease in the standard of living and quality of life in Scotland.
  The question whether the Board should be essentially an English body is a matter to be decided by the people of England and hon. Members representing English constituencies. They should decide whether it should be interventionist, non-dogmatic, or whatever. We are to have an agency in Scotland and, with reservations, my party supports its establishment. Last night, the Conservatives changed their mind and, having opposed it, ended up supporting it. However, we insist that it must not be subservient to the NEB.
  4.45 p.m.
  Mr. Ian Mikardo: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I have your guidance? I am trying very hard to follow the proceedings, and this, as you will know, involves looking at three documents—the Bill, the Lords amendments, and our Amendment Paper. I cannot find anything in the group of amendments we are now discussing which is germane to the point the hon. Member is making. I cannot find anything about Scotland in them. There are references to Scotland in other parts of the Bill, but not in these amendments. Can you show me where references to Scotland appear in the amendments under discussion?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman, who has been in the House almost as long as I have. The hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Crawford) is straying from the narrow path that he should be following. The points he seeks to make should be made on later amendments.
  Mr. Crawford: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The point is that if the Government's attempts to defeat the Lords amendment succeed, there will be more centralisation of decision-making, and the Labour Party in Scotland, married as it is to the doctrine of centralisation and taking away decision-making—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member. He could make this speech on every amendment for the rest of the afternoon. As we are under the guillotine and time is very precious, it would be helpful if he would keep this argument until we reach amendments which are related to it.
  Mr. Crawford: I give you an undertaking, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I shall not make this speech again tonight. We are concerned about an increase in the centralisation of Scottish industry's decision-making in London, and I shall advise my hon. Friends to vote against the Government.
  4.45 p.m.
  Mr. David Crouch: I listened to the speech of the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) with interest. I am not being discourteous, but it sounded like a Second Reading speech. The right hon. Lady made a valuable contribution for her side, particularly for her side of the Gangway, to the arguments we did not hear in Committee except from the former Secretary of State for Industry. It was a valuable contribution. She kept saying "This is what I think. My right hon. Friend will not agree with me." It was an interesting speech and not out of order, but I disagree with her fundamentally.
  I shall not seek to make a Second Reading speech—
  Mrs. Hart: The problem is that the amendment goes to the heart and principle of the Bill, and in discussing the amendment one is inevitably discussing the whole principle involved in this measure.
  Mr. Crouch: I was making a comment rather than a criticism. The Lords amendment which seeks to delete the expansion of public ownership into profitable areas of private industry is the kernel of the Bill. It disturbs me that this provision should have been included, because I cannot find any requirement that the Board should seek to work commercially and to make profits. Why should the Board, under the Government's direction, seek to take over large chunks of profitable industry, but not also give a commitment that they will
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  continue to be profitable? For many hours and days in Committee we sought to put this principle into the Bill. We dislike this measure, but we were not utterly destructive in Committee.
  The NEB represents a milestone in British industrial history and in the relationship between the Government and private and public industry. It is ill-conceived not to write in a requirement that the Board should seek to operate industries at a profit. It is right that we should restrict the Secretary of State and the Board from taking over such companies. The Lords were correct, and it is right that we should now have another opportunity to debate this fundamental issue.
  It is wrong for the Secretary of State to have such wide-ranging powers and be able to use the Board to move into profitable sectors of industry without giving a requirement that they will continue to make profits. We are going back 30 years to the original escapades of the 1945–1950 Labour Government which marched into industry with its nationalisation programme. We started off on the wrong foot.
  The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) and I worked for two years on the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries. We know that no Government, either Labour or Conservative, ever found the right solution. No Government gave sufficient thought to the construction of policies enabling the public sector to be correctly managed in the interests of the State and the nation. This Bill seeks to open the gates to a greater area of Government penetration and intervention. That is the object of the Government. But nowhere does the Bill contain a statement about how to manage the nationalised industries better.
  The 1968 Select Committee report on the nationalised industries was the most important report since the war on this problem. It criticised all Governments for not having produced a management structure for a more satisfactory relationship between the public sector and the Government and a more satisfactory performance of the nationalised industries.
  I am worried that we are again starting off on the wrong foot. I am not being

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  destructive. This is the cornerstone, to which the Government have not given enough thought. In the same way, at the end of the war the Labour Government embarked on nationalisation saying that they would take whole sectors of the British economy into public ownership. There were reasons for their action. Some of those sectors were sick. I refer to the coal industry. There was no great outcry when the coal industry was nationalised. Since about 1923 the railways had suffered from lack of investment. Therefore, there was no great argument against the nationalisation of the railways. Nor was there any argument against the nationalisation of gas and electricity.
  The trouble was that we marched into the nationalisation process without having given sufficient thought to it. It is a pity that Parliament, the Government and civil servants have not devised a better system with which to manage our nationalised industries. We have been carried away by the emotion of our political desires. In 1945 there was a political desire to correct the wrongs of the 1930s. The Labour Party expressed its desire of 70 years' standing for the State to move into industry.
  Today our duty is to ensure that what we take over in the name of the public is properly and correctly run. Insufficient thought has been given to that problem. We recognise the zeal of the members of the Labour Party for this Bill. We may not agree with it but we acknowledge and admire that zeal, much as we dislike the Bill. Many Labour Members believe that this measure is right for the country. I do not believe that those Members are wrong-headed. I do not bracket all of them as Left-wing militants seeking to perform an action desired by a minority of the community.
  Mr. Martin Flannery: Does the hon. Member imply that the railways and mines were well run and profitable when the Labour Government nationalised them? We know that that is not true. However, why did not the Tory Party make any effort to take those undertakings back into private ownership and run them more efficiently? If the hon. Gentleman will suggest better methods of running the nationalised industries, we are more than willing to listen to his plans.
  Mr. Crouch: Although I must not wander away from the amendments, I must point out that I did nothing about the nationalisation proposals in 1945 as I was not old enough. I was not a Member of Parliament. I had my reservations about the programme. I shall inform the hon. Gentleman of my views and send him an article I have written.
  In 1945 there was a zeal and a zest for nationalisation. That zeal exists today, although it is misguided. The tragedy today is not so much the extent of the advance of State intervention into the private sector. Rather it is the manner in which it is conceived. The motive for the intervention is wrong.
  In 1945 the Labour Government commenced their public ownership programme. They said that there would be no further worries about the sick industries which had suffered from underinvestment. They said to the people "You are the shareholders. These are your industries". That is not the way to run an industry. Something more must be said. However, nothing more is said in the Bill. That is the pity of it.
  There is a requirement that public ownership should be extended into profitable areas of industry. I should not be speaking now if there was a commitment under the clause requiring the NEB to run industry profitably. That is where the Government have failed. There is now a new Secretary of State for Industry. Let him think about the problem, which is wider than the Bill leads us to believe. If the Bill is passed, the NEB will operate with £1,000 million. The Secretary of State will make the relevant decisions without necessarily asking for the blessing of Parliament. The scope of State intervention will be widened.
  Does the Minister believe that the Departments concerned and the appointed members of the NEB are competent to run successfully the industries which will be taken over? What do I mean by "successfully"? The nationalised industries' statutes have always made clear that there were two sides of the nationalised industries' operations. The nationalised industries were required to be commercial and to render a social service. They have social obligations. The dividing line is ill-defined, as one nationalised industry

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  chairman after another has complained after experience of doing the job.
  There is no lack of will on the part of the nationalised industries' boards to operate successfully on behalf of the community. Mr. Marsh, the Chairman of British Rail, said recently that he found it hard to determine the social obligation of British Rail and its commercial objective. He received no direction from the Secretary of State for the Environment on that matter.
  I doubt whether he could get such a direction. That is the one sector in which it is difficult. There are many areas in the private sector manufacturing industry into which the Bill takes us where we must define commercial obligation and not regard the Bill just as another opportunity of taking the private sector into public ownership for social reasons alone.
  5.0 p.m.
  We are all concerned about unemployment and the tragedy of our failure to achieve greater industrial development and more jobs in the regions. The Conservative Government's Industry Act 1972 sought to legislate through intervention by the State to encourage industrial development and produce jobs. The Bill, too, has that object. The creation of jobs in the regions is a social requirement of the Bill, but the Bill does not include as a concomitant the essential requirement of industry, namely, that it should work profitably.
  I have described the National Enterprise Board as a cornerstone or kernel. I should not be against the establishment of the NEB if I saw it as a State holding company performing clearly defined and correct functions, but the functions of the NEB as specified in the Bill are not correct. Those clearly defined functions should be, on the one hand, to achieve commercial sense in industry and, on the other hand, to perform certain social obligations. There would be no disadvantage in establishing through the Bill the National Enterprise Board as a State holding company or corporation which removed the nationalised industries one stage further away from the intervention, interference and looking over the shoulder that must come alike from sponsoring and Treasury Ministers. We have learned that in the past 30 years,
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  but that lesson has been forgotten. For those reasons I support the amendment.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer: The hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) and the Secretary of State made clear that what we are discussing is at the heart of the Bill. It is interesting that we should be discussing the matter on a Lords amendment and that the Lords should have decided to attack the very heart of a Bill which has gone through all stages in this House.
  I understood the House of Lords to be a revising Chamber. I have never liked the House of Lords. Some of my hon. Friends have tabled an Early-Day Motion calling for its abolition and I support that idea. What the House of Lords has done does not amount to a revision of the Bill. If the amendment were accepted it would be a wrecking amendment. The Bill would not mean anything.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: It does not mean a great deal now.
  Mr. Heffer: We all accept that it has been somewhat weakened. If the amendment were accepted it would mean that the policy which the Labour Party put forward in the last two elections would not add up to a row of beans. Their Lordships seem to be having a happy time passing amendments which wreck various Bills. If that is the way they want to go, let them go that way. We are not seeking a constitutional crisis, but they seem to want one. If their Lordships want to mobilise public opinion against a non-elected House let them continue in this way. The quicker they go along that road and work towards their own abolition the better it will be. Their Lordships are introducing constitutional material which will undoubtedly lead us to a constitutional crisis.
  I may have wandered slightly from the wording of the Bill, but not from its material content. The hon. Member for Henley is an amazing character. He is a real smoothie. I have appeared on television with him many times, and at the end of the programme I have felt that he could argue that black was white and white was black. We had an example of that this afternoon. He is a remarkable chap. Either he knows what he

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  is doing or he does not, but I think that he does know what he is doing, because he cannot live in the fantasy world he likes to pretend to live in.
  The hon. Member for Henley spoke of Norton Villiers Triumph. Long before the Conservative Minister who has now left the House of Commons intervened in the matter, NVT was in a difficult position. Was NVT then a public or a private enterprise? Was British Leyland a publicly-owned or a privately-owned industry? Who is sacking workers throughout the country at present? Industry after industry is sacking workers. Is it privately-owned or publicly-owned industries that are collapsing? As the hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do, we are living through a severe crisis in the system of which he is so proud to be a supporter—the capitalist system. It has failed the nation.
  It is no good Conservative Members saying "Look at our investment; we have done rather well". I remember the previous Tory leader when he was Prime Minister. Poor chap, he used to attend all the bankers' dinners and, apart from probably over-eating, he made many speeches to the bankers. He used to say to them "If only you would invest more in industry. We have given you the incentive, we have lowered the tax for you, we have done all that you wanted us to do, so now please invest." They all said "Yes, Prime Minister, that was a very good speech" and did absolutely nothing about it.
  The Tories tell us that the actions of the Labour Government during the last 18 months have led to our being in a serious economic crisis, but the hon. Gentleman knows that British industry has been declining because private enterprise has failed us over the past two or three decades.
  Mr. Skinner: In manufacturing.
  Mr. Heffer: That is another argument. The present Leader of the Opposition says that the trouble is not that we have too little Socialism but that we have too much. She lives in a fantasy world, because we have never tried Socialism in Britain. We do not have anything like it. We have had a capitalist system which has been bolstered by Government intervention along Keynesian lines in order to
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  stop it from collapsing altogether. That is what we have had, and that is what we have at present.
  It is obvious that we need to have an entirely new industrial strategy. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark spelt out clearly and simply the sort of strategy for which my party has been pressing over the years. If we are to deal with the serious crisis and once again rebuild our manufacturing industry and halt the growth of unemployment and reverse the trend, it must be done through the National Enterprise Board. It means entering into the profit-making sphere. I do not want the Board to end up with all the "lame ducks", because if that happens it will be a "dead duck" and will get nowhere. Conservative Members would be quite happy for it to be such a repository. If the NEB were to take all the companies that have failed, Conservative Members could say, after a while, "There you are, it is public enterprise that has failed".
  The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) always makes interesting speeches. He tries to be as fair and as honest as possible. He is usually moderate in the arguments that he advances. He said that we were all against unemployment. It is like all being against sin—of course we are, except if we are caught at it, and then it is a different matter. We are all against unemployment. The hon. Gentleman should know that if we accept the Lords amendment relating to the establishment of new industrial companies it would cut right across the whole question of the development of new publicly-owned industries, which are essential to deal with our worst unemployment areas.
  We have tried the old methods. The Industry Act, which was introduced by the then Conservative Government and which we accepted in many respects, but not all, went beyond even what Labour Governments had done. That was a great carrot to private industry to get into areas such as Merseyside, the West of Scotland, the North-East coast, South Wales and so on which, even when we supposedly had full employment, always had an unemployment rate which was twice the national average for the time. Unemployment in those areas was not reaching disastrous levels, as it is now, but it was always present. The carrot was there.

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  We also tried the system of development certificates, which was aimed at encouraging industries not to expand in the South but to go to these areas. I will not say that that has failed, but it has had to run fast to keep in precisely the same spot.
  We need to introduce new ideas and methods. This means the development of public ownership and the creation of new industries and companies which, on the basis of a planned approach, could be in association with and help towards the development of under-developed parts of the world.
  Mr. Nicholas Ridley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) has just been inveighing against multinationals? Why does he want to set them up?
  Mr. Heffer: I did not say anything about establishing multinationals. I said that I wanted to establish publicly-owned industries which would produce the type of products that are essential in certain under-developed parts of the world. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister used to make many speeches about the need for pumps in India. Perhaps we should set up on Merseyside some factories which will manufacture pumps which can be sent to India and other parts of the world. We could do that if we so desired.
  5.15 p.m.
  If we accept the Lords amendment we shall do two things—first, we shall prevent the development of publicly-owned industries in the profit-making sectors and, secondly, we shall take away the right, under the Bill, to establish publicly-owned companies in areas of greatest need and areas which have the highest unemployment. For those reasons alone hon. Members should throw out these amendments.
  The hon. Member for Henley mentioned the steel industry and the fact that the Government had kept their pledge to review the situation on closures. Apparently this is a crime. No one denies that it was necessary to modernise the steel industry. It was precisely because private enterprise had not modernised it that it was essential to bring it under public ownership. The argument is the
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  reverse of what the hon. Gentleman said. It was precisely because private enterprise in the steel industry and all the other industries that had to be taken over had failed this nation that it was necessary to take them over as part of the national assets.
  We want to extend public ownership outside that type of industry. We shall have to carry out some rescue jobs, but we want to extend public ownership to the profit-making sector, so that, once and for all, we can wipe out the nonsensical arguments advanced by Opposition Members. They argue that public ownership does not make profits, because we have to rescue companies or industries from the very malaise from which private enterprise is suffering.
  Mr. Ridley: It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). I shall attempt to follow him in what he has said, but before I do I want to ask him, as I have asked him before, to drop the admonishing finger, because we find it a little exhausting to be waved at in this way.
  The right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) cannot have it both ways. She was recently the Minister for Overseas Development and she cannot, therefore, inveigh against the multinationals. The great thing about multinational companies is that they have done more to help the under-developed countries, to build plants where plants were not, and to set up indigenous manufacturing capacity where it was not, than she and all her predecessors in the office that she held put together. If she had ceased to tax companies so that more money would have been available to them for investment overseas and had not spent it in aid, which may—and all too often did—find its way into the wrong channels, she would have been doing the underdeveloped countries a service.
  Mrs. Hart: I cannot enter into the complicated arguments now, but I refer the hon. Gentleman to a study by Lawrence Whitehead, of St. Antony's College, Oxford, in which he will find the evidence which supports my argument that the multinational companies, in private investment in developing countries, have taken more out than they put in. That is an authoritative piece of research

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  evidence. If the hon. Gentleman cares to contradict it with new evidence I shall be glad to listen. What is relevant now to the developing world is co-operation between their own public sectors and the public sectors of industrialised countries. They are rejecting private investment because of the element of exploitation. Nevertheless—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. These amendments are wide enough in scope, but I hope that we shall not widen the debate to the issue of multinational companies. It does not now arise. Only courtesy kept me in my seat until the right hon. Lady concluded her argument in her own speech.
  Mr. Ridley: I concur entirely, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Only courtesy kept me in my seat and prevented my intervention in her second speech. I accept your protection, and I shall not follow her into these far away fields, much as I would like to do. I hope for an occasion when we may do so.
  The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton talked about the failure of capitalism, of the private enterprise system. The nub of the debate so far has been the failure of private enterprise to achieve as high a level of investment as we should like and as high a level as that of our industrial competitors. In this context one quotes the Japanese, with four times the amount of investment per head, and the Germans with two and a half times as much. I must add that one does not find glaring examples of such success behind the Iron Curtain. These successes have been achieved in free enterprise countries.
  The heart of the question whether the National Enterprise Board should be allowed to enter into profitable private enterprise is why the British capitalist system has been less successful in investment, as I agree it has been, than others. The answer is difficult; it is compounded of several factors.
  It is easy to say—indeed, it is almost common ground—that there has been insufficient profitability from investment. Why has that been the case? I shall list some of the reasons. First, our frequent changes in taxation and our complicated and penal system of taxation have been a factor.
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  Secondly, I think that price control has been the greatest possible disincentive to the operation of private industry. We started with Lord George-Brown in considering this evil policy, which has been imposed upon industry by all Governments. I can achieve some personal satisfaction from having resisted it throughout It has been an inhibiting factor upon investment.
  Thirdly, I would list the restrictive attitude of labour. This, I believe, is the crux of the matter. The story of the Llanwern blast furnace is the reason why outside investors are not going to put money into private industry, because if the men will not work the new equipment without holding to ransom the enterprise that produces it, there is no point in putting in that new equipment.
  Why are we so low in the shift work league table? Why is there so much gross overmanning, particularly in the public sector? Why are the Government producing Luddite Bill after Luddite Bill to make it more difficult to dismiss workers who should be dismissed for the sake of industrial efficiency, and Bills which are making it almost impossible to get rid of those in industry who agitate and cause trouble? Why do the Government help to support hereditary restrictive practices in the docks designed not to increase industrial efficiency but to reduce it?
  The hard and painful thing about industrial efficiency is that it requires sacrifices often more of individuals than of communities. When one buys a new machine which will do the work of 10 men, nine of those men will have to go. That is what productivity is about. That is the reason for investment. When one comes to the end of the useful life of a piece of plant or a factory, then those people have to go out and go to another factory, perhaps many miles away. Sometimes firms have to dismiss people. Yet the whole ethos of the Government has been to deny these things, to impede the mobility of labour and progress towards industrial efficiency.
  When we pull aside the veil of jargon and Socialist ideology we find that the purpose of the National Enterprise Board is to make industry more responsive to the ideas of the trade unions and the workers. That may be a laudable aim,

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  but what are these ideas? Is it the purpose of the AUEW to back the proper manning of machinery in engineering? Is it the purpose of the Transport and General Workers' Union to reduce overmanning in the docks? Is it the purpose of the steel unions to ensure that new plant is commissioned and operated from the beginning with the minimum number of men? Is that what unions seek to do?
  The purpose of this whole exercise is to perpetuate outworn practices and overmanning. I will give way to any hon. Member opposite who denies it. The whole purpose of the NEB is that it should not close down factories which should be closed down. The whose purpose is to ensure that a union will be able to get a guarantee that where it has 3,000 men in a plant now there will be 3,000 men there in two years' time.
  Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman has asked us to deny the assertion he has made of a Luddite complex among various people engaged in manufacturing and, by and large, dirty industries. One gets the clear impression that it is the people who work in such industries that he is mainly concerned about. He is not so concerned with Members of this House, although some workers would regard this place as terribly overmanned. Will he reflect on the policy of successive Governments in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, under which about 350 pits were closed and about 350,000 miners were thrown on the scrap heap, and many of them have had to travel to five or six pits within 10 years—from Scotland to Wales, to the East Midlands, to the West Midlands, and so on? At the end of it, as a result of the Middle East oil situation, despite some of the warnings that some of us had given—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order—
  Mr. Skinner: I have not quite finished yet.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I know. That is my anxiety. The hon. Gentleman is intervening in a speech. Interventions must be reasonably shorter than speeches.
  Mr. Skinner: There is nothing in "Erskine May" about the length of interventions. As I see it, an intervention depends to some extent upon yourself—well, almost entirely upon yourself—but
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  also on the kind of argument that is being pursued. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) made a specific point—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It would be a pity if we wasted more time on this argument. I merely sought to ask the hon. Member to bring his intervention to a close as quickly as possible in the interests of the House.
  5.30 p.m.
  Mr. Skinner: Perhaps we can forget about those exchanges, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and carry on with the original point. As a result of the kind of policy which resulted in all those people being on the scrap heap, does not the hon. Gentleman understand that if in the current situation miners were asked once again to see their pits being closed—it is true that in some instances that is happening now—it is likely that there would be resistance on their part to being cast around to all the various collieries in different areas of the country? That is what the hon. Gentleman must understand. Perhaps that is why Members of Parliament, instead of reducing their own numbers over the years, have increased them by five here and 10 there, or whatever.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member's intervention is almost as long as the speech made by the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley).
  Mr. Ridley: Perhaps I might have a little injury time for the two interventions that I have suffered. I agree with the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that what the coal miners did in the 1950s was of great significance for coal productivity. It is one of the few examples from the public sector of a genuine effort to improve productivity, and I pay tribute to it. Would that it could be continued. Coal productivity is not only at a low level but declining.
  That brings me to the main argument that I put forward for supporting the Lords amendment. Once a business becomes either totally controlled by the State or owned by the State we get in all cases the politicalisation of the decisions that matter. Once that happens the price of coal is determined not by its market value but by what is good for

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  the electricity industry, the pensioners or the various customers of the coal industry. In that situation wages and productivity are determined by what is politically acceptable to the supporters of the party in power. Redundancy policy is then determined on political grounds rather than on economic grounds. Again, I pay tribute to the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Regardless of political consequences, the Government of the day continued with their closure programme.
  The hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Tomlinson) has asked why the previous Conservative Government held down the prices of nationalised industry products. They did so because it is too easy to take that course. No Government can resist the temptation of saying "Are we not benefitting the people by holding down the price of gas, steel or electricity?" Let us consider pensions. Our national insurance contributions do not pay for our pensions. Our pensions are decided politically and not in terms of what we can afford. They are decided politically on the basis of what pensioners should receive. Every time there is a gap between what it costs to provide for the goods and services and what it is possible to sell them for that gap has to be plugged by the taxpayer.
  The thesis of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton is that there has been a failure of capitalism and that Socialism is the answer. By adopting that approach we shall compound our errors. The failure has been that of Socialism. Whenever an industry or service finds itself sufficiently caught in the maw of the State the main decisions are not taken on grounds of economic efficiency but on political grounds. Those decisions affect the people who work in the organisations concerned because in the end it is they who will suffer. Must I say it again? I have every sympathy with such people, I understand their problems. However, it is not enough to say that because something inconveniences people it must not happen. That is the way to a third-rate industrial economy which can never pay the standard of living which people want. That is the way to inferiority. It is in asking people to accept the challenge of change, of improvement and of new investment that the future should lie.
  Mr. Doug Hoyle: I always listen with attention to what the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) has to say. It appears that he is claiming that change is being resisted because it will result in people being thrown out of work. Let us consider the example set by Sweden. Change takes place in Sweden, but people are not thrown out of work because retraining takes place at the same time. The example that the hon Gentleman should be putting before us is that set by Sweden, where instead of people being thrown out of work new industry is taken to the people. Is that not really what we want? Should we not follow the example of Sweden, where intervention takes place in the economy by retraining the people rather than putting them on the scrap heap?
  Mr. Ridley: I do not want to get side tracked into a discussion about Sweden. If the Labour Party would adopt the Swedish tax régime it might immediately find a great increase in investment in this country. I agree that there should be retraining and full employment, but there are ways and means of approaching that situation. Perhaps we have something to learn on another occasion by debating that matter.
  I return to the main point of my argument, namely, that the private enterprise system has been prevented from working in this country because of ever less mild doses of Socialism, regulations, taxation and interference. We have seen the disruption of the profit motive. It will be destroyed completely by listening to those who want an easy life in industry, those who want overmanning and restrictive practices, those who want to frustrate the purposes of investment.
  I have given way to every Labour Member who has wished to intervene, but not one of them has denied that such motives are behind the Bill. By definition the Bill makes the situation worse. By pandering to the worst desires of organised labour for Luddism, allowing restrictive practices and overmanning and at the same time making available taxpayers' money to plug the gap between the prices which may be charged and the wages which have to be paid, we exacerbate the economic crisis which the Government have brought about. Far from there being a crisis of capitalism there is

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  a crisis of Socialism. To prescribe ever greater doses of that medicine could soon kill the remaining part of the private sector.
  There is not very much that is profitable left in the private sector. It must be remembered that we rely upon the profitable part of the private sector to fund the losses of the public sector. The point is not far away when the private sector will no longer be able to carry the public sector deficit. On top of that, those who work in the private sector are getting to the point where their frustrations, their overtaxed position and the difficulties of providing the taxation revenue which is needed for the public sector are beginning to convince them that they, too, should throw in the sponge and join the public sector. By those means everyone would have an easy life. Of course, it is because we have too easy a life that we have a low industrial performance. The Lords amendment, if it is allowed to stay in the Bill, would be a small contribution towards alleviating that situation.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: I begin by taking up one or two of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley). I do so partly because I am a member of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers. I am a sponsored member of that union. I take up what was said by the hon. Gentleman because he referred to my union and because he wishes to apply a different perspective to labour than he does to employers.
  All of us in the trade union and Labour movement have been arguing for years that we must have a productive manufacturing industry. We have said that unless we have a growing sector of manufacturing industry there will be a reduction in the number of jobs available. We have also said that the only way in which we can achieve a growing sector is by investment in industry. Of course, investment has not been going in that direction.
  The hon. Gentleman says that there are restrictive practices in industry. I would be the last to deny that they exist. He mentioned a specific instance concerning a blast furnace. I shall not discuss that matter, because I do not have sufficiently detailed knowledge of the industry concerned. However, the hon. Gentleman must understand that if he asks for a free
  528
  market economy he must not be surprised if trade unions face the hard facts of life and do their best to protect their own interests.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Hoyle) made a valid point by referring to the situation in Sweden. We have never argued that there should never be redundancies or that people should be employed from the day they begin work until they retire in the same job and factory. We believe that it is wrong if major decisions are made that change the whole outlook of a man's life and chuck him on to an unemployment queue, with little prospect of obtaining another job. We want to see new industries established and developed, so that people can change jobs.
  My union produced an interesting document looking forward to the day when people might have to work in four different industries during their life time, with the opportunity of retraining. It is wrong for Opposition Members to suggest that trade unions are opposed to productivity, investment, or modernisation in industry. We have been crying in the wilderness for years for this to happen, and it has not been achieved by the private enterprise system which the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury so enthusiastically espouses.
  I found the speech of the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Crawford) extremely disappointing. He is the main economic spokesman of the SNP.
  Mr. Tomlinson: You are kidding.
  Mr. Hughes: No, I am not kidding—it is absolutely true. As we are dealing with an amendment on the question whether the NEB should be able to establish new industries, I expected him, on behalf of his party, to say how it views economic events in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. What sort of economic mix does the hon. Gentleman envisage in Scotland? We have heard nothing about that today.
  The hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire said that he was neither Conservative nor Socialist. Some of us remember him in a previous reincarnation as an economic adviser to the Scottish Tory Party. That explains part of the failure of the Scottish Tory Party to

  529
  understand industrial events in Scotland and to deal with Scottish economic problems.
  Mr. Crawford: The hon. Gentleman knows that the SNP has consistently supported the Labour Government in the establishment of the Scottish Development Agency. We believe that that Agency, not the London-based NEB, should have the responsibility of looking after industry in Scotland.
  Mr. Hughes: That is a different argument. We are not today arguing about the future of the SDA. That matter was dealt with yesterday, and we gave a Third Reading to that Bill. I welcome support for that Agency, from whatever quarter it may come. However, at present we are dealing with the NEB, and the hon. Gentleman did not deny that he was opposed to the Board's operating in parallel with the Agency. He appeared to suggest that the economic problems of Scotland could be solved within a Scottish context and that we could neglect other matters. It is a great mistake for the hon. Gentleman to take that view. We want to support every possible method or agency which will take steps to deal with unemployment in Scotland and to restructure the Scottish economy.
  The National Enterprise Board has an important rôle to play. I do not see the matter solely in a Scottish context. I do not want to be diverted too far into dealing with the problems facing Scottish industry, but for too long there has been a predominance of heavy industry, or primary manufacturing industry, as it may be termed. We have not been able to modernise or enter industries that might have growth potential for the future. I believe that the NEB should work in parallel with the SDA and should enter manufacturing industry and establish new industries.
  5.45 p.m.
  We shall need every possible power to deal with the situation. We should seek to go not only into manufacturing industry but into profitable industry. That will generate fresh capital, which the Government can invest in other industries. It will mean that the profits from profitable national enterprise can be used in other ways to help industries that will always be in a loss-making position because they have social responsibilities.
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  Some nationalised industries face great difficulties because we have said that they must operate as purely commercial concerns. This leaves out of account social conscience and responsibility. I am not against profit-making industry.
  The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury was mistaken in his view that the trouble with industry in the United Kingdom is that it is over-planned, and over-interfered with, and that there is too much Socialism. In some respects I wish that were true, but it is far from true. The planning controls that exist—there are some in operation—operate in the wrong way. They function too much in a negative atmosphere. We have to react to events. When a company approaches a Government Department because it has run into cash flow or sales problems, or has stumbled on difficulty in a new project, it often does so after the event. The Government should be able to go to industries at an earlier stage to discuss future policy. The planning agreement system should do much to correct that situation.
  Furthermore, many of the judgments on which we make our economic decisions are, because of the negative nature of our planning, out-dated. Sometimes, by the time information reaches Governments on which decisions are to be made events have changed. They are then faced with making a decision upon circumstances that no longer apply. That may be one of the reasons why some economic judgments made by Governments in the past have been notoriously wrong. They do not look far enough into the future. If we are to go into manufacturing industry, where we can make profits, it is no use waiting until a company is established and beginning to make profits and then deciding to go in—because such a move will be resisted. The nature of the beast is such that it will resist a public enterprise system going into partnership with it, and, indeed, it could hardly do otherwise. There is a basic difference of ideology between those who uphold the capitalist system and those who uphold the system of Socialism. Naturally, there will be resistance and clashes.
  Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: I am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman make a distinction between those who uphold the system of

  531
  capitalism and those who uphold Socialism, but I do not understand what he is talking about. A short while ago he said that public enterprise should make profits so as to invest them in other industries. As profits are related to capitalism, what is the difference?
  Mr. Hughes: The difference is that the hon. and learned Gentleman has spent far too much time in the Law Courts, quibbling over words.
  Mr. Fairbairn: And winning.
  Mr. Hughes: The hon. and learned Gentleman fails to understand the whole basis of the matter if he does not yet understand that in order to invest, one has to have a surplus—or if he likes to term it, a profit. I do not care what one calls it, but the reason why industry is in such a mess is that profits, as a source for capital investment, have not been used for that purpose; they have been frittered away over the years in all kinds of ways—in high living, in the attitude, "Eat today and forget about tomorrow". There has not been the investment there ought to have been in British industry, and the hon. and learned Gentleman well knows it.
  Mr. Tom King: I hope that before making the assertion that money has been frittered away in high living the hon. Member studied the NEDO report on investment which showed that 127 per cent. of the net cash flow of companies in the past year was taken by the Government. Does the hon. Gentleman call that high living? How are companies supposed to invest when the Government take such a large percentage?
  Mr. Hughes: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is arguing that the private sector should not pay tax, or that it is paying too much tax. That is a different matter. Of course the Government are right to pay for their social policies through taxation. The hon. Gentleman cannot say that the current situation is due to the fact that the Government are taking too much in taxation. In the 13 years from 1945, when we had a Conservative Government, there was not enough investment. We had four and a half years of Conservative Government between 1970 and 1974, when again there was not enough investment. The former
  532
  Tory Prime Minister did his rounds, making speeches and exhorting companies, but still the investment did not take place. It is necessary for investment to be made. There is no quarrel about that.
  The quarrel is how the investment should be made and, once it is made, who is to benefit. I believe that the State ought to reap the benefit of its investment. Unless we are to go through cycles of boom and bust, the State must have a greater influence—not in a negative sense—on future planning. We ought not to allow their Lordships to carry the day by removing the ability of the National Enterprise Board to establish new industries or to move into profitable concerns from the beginning as well as later. It is cardinal to the argument about how we can control investment. We ought to support the Government and disagree with the amendment.
  Mr. Wigley: I have listened to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) with a little surprise, particularly in relation to the way in which he dealt with the intervention of the hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn). Judging from his words, what he is advocating in using profits within the State sector is nothing short of State capitalism. This is the aspect of the National Enterprise Board which fills my colleagues and me with horror.
  I say that after having served on the Committee which examined the Industry Bill and, as hon. Members will know, as one who has considerable sympathy with some of the Government's aims. One of the most dangerous aspects of the Bill is that it could lead to centralism. That should be very much in the mind of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North and other hon. Members who represent constituencies in Scotland or Wales or other outlying areas.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's surprise. Capital investment can come from only two sources—either from the private market, the stock market and so on, or from the State. If investment is a good thing for the future and for job security it cannot be bad if it is done by the State.
  Mr. Wigley: I am even more surprised, having heard that. The failures in Wales

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  and, I suspect, in Scotland arising from the present system have been failures because those in power, whether in the private or the public sector, have been too remote. I can give evidence of this in both the public and the private sectors. The Secretary of State for Employment, who is not present at the moment, has been talking about the number of people thrown out of work in the private sector. He should say that in places like Ebbw Vale, where the steel industry is being run down. The steelworks there has the best industrial relations record in the whole of the United Kingdom. Until recently it had not lost a single day in strikes. The only recent strike has been the one-day strike in protest against impending closure.
  We are in prospect of losing thousands of jobs at the Shotton Steel Works. That job loss will cripple the economy of Flintshire, Clwyd and most of Northern Wales. That is in the public sector. Throwing employees on to the scrap heap is not the prerogative of private industry. It is carried out by the State industry when it is run in the way that State industry has been run from London, by successive Governments of whatever political complexion.
  In their talk of Socialism, I hope that Labour Members do not mean what happened in the steel, coal or railway industries. If this is what they have in store for us in this or any other measure their solution will leave Wales no better than it has been in the past.
  I take up a point made by the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), who argued against the objectives of the Bill and referred to restrictive practices. Does he not realise that men adopt such practices because of their fear of having no other employment source? Does he not realise that people are afraid of losing their jobs when machinery takes over because there is no alternative employment in their area? Men have been used as raw material, shunted around from one corner to the other, to generate profit, according to the hon. Member.
  The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury spoke of the subject of politics entering industry. It does, and provided that it enters in the right way there is no objection to that. If it introduces
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  into industry the need for there to be an awareness of the social needs of the immediate community served by the industry and the needs of the distant community in terms of the consumer, it is a good thing. I find it difficult to follow any logic in the politics of the twentieth century which goes back to a free-for-all.
  The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North was rather unkind to criticise the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Crawford) for not developing the economic policy of his party, when he was prevented from deviating from the words on the Amendment Paper. I am sure that the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire can develop his argument perfectly well and that the people of Scotland will respond to what he has to say. I take up a point made by the hon. Member because I contend that it is highly relevant to the debate. Last night we debated the Scottish Development Agency Bill, and gave it a Third Reading. That means that the Bill will come into law irrespective of whether the Bill that we are debating tonight reaches the statute book.
  The same thing may well happen tomorrow evening, with the Welsh Development Agency Bill. The problem that arises concerns Lords Amendment No. 11, which refers to the establishing of industrial undertakings. That provision exists in the Bill that we are discussing tonight and also in the Development Agency Bills relating to Scotland and Wales. The powers run in parallel. It is therefore important for us to understand who is doing what in this matter—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The only question we are concerned with now—and of course no occupant of the Chair enters into an argument with an hon. Member—is whether this amendment, removing the word "establishing", and the other amendments being discussed should be accepted. We are not dealing with the measure which will be discussed tomorrow or the measure which we discussed last night.
  Mr. Wigley: Our attitude towards this amendment will depend to a large extent upon the way in which this same provision is implemented in Wales and Scotland. If it is implemented in those two countries and there is the establish-

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  ment of new industry by the NEB, not through the SDA or the WDA but in parallel and across, that could easily create the kind of economic planning problem which these measures ought to be eliminating. We need co-ordination.
  Throughout the Committee stage of the Industry Bill and the Welsh Development Agency Bill other hon. and learned Members have tried to clarify the relationship between these bodies. We have been unsuccessful. We have had meetings with Ministers, we have exchanged correspondence. This is pertinent—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am trying to help the hon. Gentleman to make his contribution, but I must ask him to accept, as the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Crawford) did, that we are discussing here only the question whether we should leave out the word "establishing" and the other two amendments linked with it. The hon. Gentleman's other quarrel ought to be pursued on another occasion.
  6.0 p.m.
  Mr. Wigley: I hear what you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I realise that other hon. Members wish to speak, and I shall not labour this point, but perhaps the Minister will say whether it is the intention of the NEB to set up industry in Wales under the Bill, acting in the same way as the Welsh Development Agency and the Scottish Development Agency are intended to act. This matter is critical, and I believe that it is pertinent to our decision on how to vote tonight. Our attitude will be largely determined by what the Minister says on this point.
  My party believes that it is necessary from time to time—not for doctrinaire reasons, but in order to solve the economic problems which face Wales and Scotland, and which may well face the regions of England—for the State to have powers of intervention. There is a need for the State to have powers to establish industry. Over recent years we have seen attempts to direct industry by various methods that have failed.
  Both the private sector and the public sector have failed to set up industries in areas such as mine. We learned from a parliamentary answer today, to my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr.
  536
  Evans), that in the past two years not one job has been created by public enterprise in Wales. Therefore, there is clearly a need for some initiative in this direction. If private industry has failed for a century and more, and public industry is failing now, we must take a new look at the situation.
  I have doubts about the effectiveness of the NEB—certainly doubts whether it should have any scope in Wales. I sympathise with those who take the theoretical view that there should be a role for the NEB in setting up industry in those areas where the private sector has failed, but I argue that in Wales and Scotland that job should be left to our two appropriate Boards.
  Mr. Hal Miller: We are considering amendments made by their Lordships regarding the functions of the National Enterprise Board—in particular, the establishment of industrial undertakings and the extension of public ownership into profitable areas of manufacturing industry. The purposes of the Board for which it may exercise its functions are
  "(a) the assistance of the economy…
  (b) the promotion…of industrial efficiency and international competitiveness; and
  (c) the provision, maintenance or safeguarding of employment".
  Labour Members who have been insisting on the deletion of the amendment have a responsibility to show that the engagement of the Board in the establishment of an undertaking or the extension of public ownership into profitable areas can contribute towards those objectives.
  The right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) made plain her brief that the Government had to have control over the economic decisions of key firms. There is little evidence, and the right hon. Lady certainly adduced none, that Government economic decision-making has contributed to the success of, or assistance to, the economy. The assertions that merely taking profitable manufacturing industry into public ownership will contribute in any way to those objectives have yet to be substantiated. The Minister has an obligation to try to put forward a coherent rationale showing why there should be such a contribution from such an extension of public enterprise.

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  Let us examine the record of public enterprise, leaving out the services such as the Post Office and the railways. Let us consider the steel industry, which is a manufacturing industry. Have we any evidence in that industry of
  "the provision, maintenance or safeguarding of employment",
  of
  "the assistance of the economy",
  or
  "the promotion…of industrial efficiency and international competitiveness"?
  Reference has been made to the sorry story of the introduction of the new furnaces at Llanwern, which must act as a considerable disincentive to people undertaking investment, regardless of the ownership.
  For too long this evening hon. Members on both sides of the House have concentrated on the question of ownership, which to my mind is largely irrelevant, instead of the question of performance and efficiency, in the direction of which my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) tried to point the debate. If there were some evidence that any nationalised industry had had some regard to performance and efficiency, particularly in the use of equipment, the manning of equipment and the production flow, we could feel rather happier about accepting the Secretary of State's advice to reject the Lords amendment, but no evidence has been forthcoming.
  Let us look at the other enterprises in which the Government have sought to take some economic decisions. My hon. Friend referred to the motor cycle industry. There is no point in going right back to the failure of management. There is no denying that there was such a failure, but there was then a Government rescue operation, by a Conservative Government, followed by a highly political intervention leading to the creation of a third factory, which it was recognised right at the beginning could result only in the bankruptcy of the other two factories in the industry.
  When I asked last week what action the Government were taking to safeguard the public funds that had been made available to NVT, I received the highly complacent and misleading answer from the Under-Secretary that the de-
  538
  cision had been taken in July. The decision had been taken to do nothing about advancing further funds, but what action had been taken to safeguard the funds already committed? That is one of the stories of waste of resources and funds which we can so ill afford and which contribute materially to the doubt whether an extension of Government control over economic decision-making is desirable in manufacturing industry.
  As has been pointed out time and again by my hon. Friends and by our nationalist friends, what we need is clear guidelines on how those enterprises under the NEB are to operate if the Board is to extend its operations into the profitable areas of private manufacturing industry. We need a clear assurance that those areas will remain profitable. It is no good the Secretary of State saying that there will be a proper commercial discipline. What is that discipline to be? Why have not the guidelines been produced? On the evidence of the Ryder Report for British Leyland, it is far from clear that any such commercial discipline has yet entered into the arrangements.
  We need satisfaction on these points before accepting the Minister's advice to reject the amendments, which are intended to maintain a profitable private manufacturing industry in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) pointed out that that industry is solely responsible for meeting the public sector requirements for investment and consumption. Any erosion of that tax base can lead only to a lessening of public division.
  Labour Members have frequently said that there has been a failure to invest, as if the mere investment of money were a guarantee of success. I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Lanark, with her known interest in the problems of development, is not present, because I wish to draw on my experience at the World Bank. It became clear from the Bank's studies of investment in all sorts of countries, under the Marshall Plan and later in the Third World, that the mere making available of money by itself did nothing to contribute to the success of an economy. There are a whole number of other factors which must be brought into play. It is the absence of any recipe to

  539
  deal with these other factors which is such a defect of the Bill and is why my hon. Friends and I are so reluctant to agree that the NEB should establish industrial undertakings or extend its public ownership.
  One of those factors is the emergence of risk taking. One of the chief characteristics of a national enterprise is its failure to take risks and to encourage risk-taking and its inability to strike out in advance into new directions. The spirit which informed the whole of the speech by the right hon. Member for Lanark was a retreat into isolationism and into the past. We cannot cut ourselves off from abroad, and one of the purposes of the Board is to promote international competitiveness. The right hon. Lady's railing against multinational companies, which are truly internationally competitive, leads one to suppose only that she is shying away from that purpose of the Board.
  I was surprised that neither the right hon. Lady nor the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) introduced into their contributions the call for import controls which they have made in other contexts and which complete the picture of their retreat into isolationism. If we are to survive in this country we must be internationally competitive, we must import, manufacture and export, and unless we remain competitive and subject to the disciplines of international competitiveness we cannot succeed. My hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury quite rightly asked in other advanced countries private enterprise was successful whereas in this country we have experienced such appalling difficulties. Is it not that we have been consuming too much by way of taxation, subsidies and other forms of public expenditure, leaving too little for investment? The attempts by the Government to rectify this equation by introducing the NEB seem to be a step in the wrong direction unless there are the guidelines to which I have referred, unless there is justification for supposing that it will achieve the objectives and unless the resources, not only financial but of innovation and risk taking, are available. It is for all these reasons that I support the Lords amendment.
  Mr. Sedgemore: The hon. Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller)
  540
  was more than courageous in telling us that he had been a director of the World Bank, since that organisation has a record of failure in human history which is second to none.
  Lords Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 open up the whole question of the various alternative investment strategies open both to the British Government and to British industry. There seem to be three courses which could be followed. The first, which roughly represents current policy, is that we could have a policy of wage control combined with price control, which means limited profits, and we could hope that private industry would finance its investment externally out of the banks, the Stock Exchange, FFI and a consortia of pensions and insurance funds.
  That policy appeals to the Treasury but no one seriously believes that it can succeed, and it can be seen to be failing. It is a policy which will see investment this year some 10 per cent. or more below investment in 1970 and which will see investment next year possibly even lower than it would be this year. It is a policy which if pursued would enable the economic historian to look back on this decade and call it the decade of the cowards, the decade in which the Conservative and Labour Parties turned away from themselves and in towards the centre and in the process wrought havoc with the British economy. It is a policy which I plead the Government now to give up.
  6.15 p.m.
  The second investment strategy is to create, for want of a better phrase, a vigorous, healthy private sector and to hope that British industry will invest the surpluses and the profits which it earns. We should hope too that it would respond in a way in which it has not responded in the last three decades of traditional Keynesian demand management techniques. But this policy is not practical politics or practical economics. It is a policy which is not socially acceptable; the public would not accept the "Barberism" of 1973. It is a policy which is incompatible with the prices and incomes policy which the Treasury wants as a permanent feature of the British economy.
  It is a policy which is not practical economics during the present depression.

  541
  and it is a policy which will not be practical economics during the wafer-thin upturn we may see at the end of this year or in the depression which follows that. Therefore, the lesson for the Conservatives is that it is not practical economics for them if they were returned to power. It is not practical economics for the next decade. It is a policy which does not fit in with the economic and political aspirations of many of the multinational companies which dominate industry in this country.
  That takes us to the third of the three strategies, and this is the only strategy which the Government can consider seriously. It is the strategy of greater Government investment in and control over British industry. It is the idea whose time has come—it is the idea called Socialism. One cannot stop an idea whose time has come, and that is what is worrying the Conservatives. They know that there is no way of stopping Socialism. They may be able to slow it down, but they cannot stop it coming.
  Mr. Hal Miller: Does the hon. Member agree that this time has come most clearly in East Germany, where they have to stop people getting out rather than stop the idea?
  Mr. Sedgemore: If the hon. Member studied even the mild provisions of the Bill and the industrial strategy which was reasonably proposed by the Labour Party conference in "Labour and Industry: The Next Steps", he would find some genuine hope for this country. It is time the Conservatives grew up and stopped prattling about the giant State bureaucracies of Russia and East Germany, because no Labour Member has any interest in the antics of those countries.
  The hon. Member knows that increased Government investment in and control over British industry will become in this country part of the conventional economic wisdom, and for all the reasons outlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart)—I shall not weary the House by repeating them—that is a good enough reason for rejecting the Lords amendments.
  There is another reason for rejecting the amendments. They are wrecking amendments. They are designed to wreck not merely Clause 2 but the whole Bill. The Bill represents the will of the House of
  542
  Commons and the will of the people. It has come back from the other place totally degutted in this respect by their Lordships. The message which should go out from this Chamber is not merely that we reject these amendments but that there will be legislation to follow to expunge the House of Lords, to expurgate it from the record and to expedite its total demise. Conservative politicians will go to their freemasons' societies—to their chambers of commerce—and say that the House of Lords was revising a statute which had left the House of Commons. This is not revision. This is destruction. This is wanton, cabalistic destruction by some of the most virulent reactionaries in our society, and we should make that clear to the House of Lords.
  Lords Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 raise a serious constitutional issue because they show that the other House is not a creature of the British constitution. It has become a creature of the Conservative Party.
  Long before I came into the House there was an occasion, almost a decade ago, when Mr. Nigel Birch bade farewell to the then Mr. Harold Macmillan with a prophetic quotation from Browning. I give that same prophetic quotation to the House of Lords:
  "Never glad, confident morning again!"
  Mr. Fairbairn: I would say of the speech by the hon. Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore):
  "Never glad, confident morning again!"
  All societies and Governments are concerned with the creation of wealth—even the East German Government—and the question is how best to create it.
  Even the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) said that the choice was between State capitalism, which makes profits which are reinvested, and private capitalism, which makes profits which are reinvested. Let it never be forgotten, particularly by Labour Members below the Gangway, that without profits there is no compassion. There is no money for compassion.
  Mr. Cryer: What an extraordinary statement!
  Mr. Fairbairn: One of the facts to be remembered is that all Governments since the war have taken a great deal of tax and not invested it. The suggestion now

  543
  is that this is a failure of private capitalism because the money for investment has been collected instead by taxation and squandered in a number of ways. The question is not that we should suddenly become the beneficiaries of £800 million through a legacy from some unexpected source. To hear some Labour Members speak, one might think that it is like the reading of a will, with Granny Britain unexpectedly leaving £800 million to her favourite poodle, to be spent as it liked, and £300 million to her favourite Scottie to spend on investment, and with the amazed beneficiaries not listening to the end of the will, where it is stated that "These legacies will have to be paid out of the estate of my surviving sons who have not already been bled to death by my pet vampire, Denis".
  Mr. Skinner: Is that in order?
  Mr. Fairbairn: This money has to come out of taxation, derived from profits, before it can be invested.
  There are two systems. There is the system in which the decisions are in the hands of those who are affected by them. There is also the bureaucratic system. Hon. Members may say that they are not interested in Soviet bureaucracy, but bureaucracies do not differ.
  Look at the new head of the National Enterprise Board. His previous job was affected if he made wrong decisions. He has now moved into a job which will not be affected if he makes wrong decisions. That is the essential difference.
  I believe that so-called public investment—not public ownership—is bureaucratic investment as opposed to human investment. That is the difference. Decisions are taken by people who are not affected by the decisions they take. From now on there is no risk in the life of Lord Ryder, provided that he does what he is told.
  Mr. Skinner: What is necessary is workers' control.
  Mr. Fairbairn: When workers have control they have to take the risks, as they are discovering in the case of the Scottish Daily News.
  We hear complaints being made about foreign competitors. Why do we have
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  the naughty old Army buying Japanese cars and the House of Commons buying German plates? It would seem that we cannot have people who run private enterprise systems competing with this country, which is more and more in the hands of public investment, public this and public that.
  That is bureaucratic control. It removes efficiency. It removes interest. It removes risk. That is the road to inefficiency, and it is the road to the slaughter of the interests of Labour Members—namely, the funds from which we can pay for compassion, for houses and so on. If the State puts its distant, uninterested, festering fingers into decisions which are better taken by people who are affected by them, it will destroy the very sources of wealth—wealth which Labour Members are so anxious to spend before it has ever been created.
  Mr. Max Madden: Of late the Members of the other House have been, to borrow a phrase from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, sticking their lordly noses into much of our business. As the majority of the Members of that House are there representing wealth and privilege, it is instructive for us to look at what they have been sticking their noses into of late.
  We know that they have been seeking to upset proper trade union arrangements so far as they affect the Press. We know that they have been doing that in the name of Press freedom, when it is complete hypocrisy and humbug—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I shall be grateful if the hon. Gentleman will refer to the amendment that he does not like the Lords sending to us.
  Mr. Madden: I must apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if you think I have been straying from the subject, but I believe it is helpful to this debate to know the motives of the other House in putting forward amendments. I think it is in character for the other House, for instance, to oppose the Community Land Bill, which is seeking to stabilise land prices, and here today, to seek to upset industrial change. The purpose of the Bill is to transform industry and to bring within the power of the people some means of controlling their industrial environment.

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  I shall not dwell on the brilliant though very short speech made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart). She spelt out in the clearest terms the industrial reality which we all see around us. We were told by her of the enormous strength, influence and power of a very small number of large companies in Britain today. The machinery set out in the Bill for a National Enterprise Board is, I believe, the only way to bring some power back to the people, to try to allow them to determine what shall happen in this country industrially and economically.
  It is instructive that the amendments are again trying to attack industrial democracy. It is interesting to note that the representatives of wealth and privilege are seeking in these amendments to deny working people the power to have a say in what happens around them.
  I was today at the Motor Show. Before hon. Members are carried away with concern, may I say that I was there as a member of the Trade and Industry Sub-Committee of the Public Expenditure Committee, which recently produced a report of some interest to the car industry. By way of continuing that interest we took it upon ourselves to go to the Motor Show, having heard from managers of that industry over many weeks about the difficulties of the motor industry.
  We were told that the situation was still very much the same as before. We were told of the concern of those in the industry about productivity and that they are not able to get the same productivity as many of their competitors. They were still concerned about communication in industry and that somehow or other they did not seem to be getting the response from their workers that they would have liked to have.
  I asked very innocently, at each of the stands operated by the big four motor companies of this country, whether there were on the stand any representatives of working people, any shop stewards or trade union representatives. They all looked at me in complete astonishment that I should suggest that such people would dare to appear on motor industry stands at the Motor Show.
  This again is an indication of the sort of psychology which pervades so much
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  of British industry. Representatives of capital talk about trying to eliminate the "them and us" concept which is so prevalent in industry, yet British managers are not prepared to share a stand at the Motor Show with shop stewards working in the car industry from whose presence I believe that they would benefit a great deal. These are the people who make the cars. Surely they have a right to be there and to listen to the complaints of traders and buyers of their products, and to hear any words of praise. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend says, they are the people who make the cars. Surely they have a right to be there and listen to the complaints and suggestions of the buyers of their products.
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. John Gorst: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the purpose of the Motor Show is to sell cars, not to talk about them?
  Mr. Madden: Why does the hon. Gentleman think that people who produce a product have no responsibility for trying to sell it? If he is trying—[Interruption.] I do not wish to comment on the hon. Member's business affairs. Whether he is successful or not I do not know. But if the Opposition are genuinely seeking cooperation in industry, it is not inconsistent to have someone who makes the product at the point where it is sold.
  Mr. Crouch: Am I right in concluding that the hon. Gentleman is talking about industrial democracy? If so, he is talking about the next amendment. But, more pertinent to what he has been saying, talking of the Motor Show and the selling of motor cars, does he think that those cars should be sold at a profit and that the NEB should seek to operate those companies at a profit?
  Mr. Madden: I do not want to be lectured by the hon. Member about whether I am in order. His speech strayed several times from the subject in hand and I do not want to be led too far astray.
  I want to see the operations which are organised and run by the NEB run profitably. That is why I want it to be able to extend public ownership into profitable manufacturing industry. This is the kernel of our discussion and what we want to see permitted to the NEB.
  Mr. Alan Clark: I am in sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman has just said. The shop steward would probably make a better job of selling a car than a salesman would make of making one.
  Mr. Madden: I shall not comment on that intervention since I am sure that I would be ruled out of order.
  Mr. Heseltine: To amplify the importance of the hon. Member's very sensible idea, may I say that that was why the last Conservative Government arranged for exactly that idea to be carried out and for trade unionists to go with industrial management on exercises aimed at selling British goods.
  Mr. Madden: Again, I shall not be led astray.
  These amendments are wrecking amendments aimed at undermining this measure, which many of us feel was not ideal in the form in which it left this House. It was not effective or consistent or cast in the form on which most of us were elected. Nevertheless, it should be defended and certainly should not be amended as the Lords suggest. Therefore, we shall be seeking to defeat these destructive amendments in the knowledge that the Bill is aimed at improving our industrial environment and giving the people some opportunity to organise their affairs in their own way.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The impression I get on coming back is that the House thinks that it has limitless time to debate this amendment. I hope that we can come to a decision on this, because Lords Amendment No. 13 is germane to the matters raised.
  Mr. Anthony Nelson: I shall try to be brief and I hope that the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) will forgive me if I do not follow his argument closely.
  It is no part of a Government's responsibility or of the duty for which we were elected to expend thousands of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on acquiring stakes in profitable companies or risk capital in companies which neither need nor welcome the State as their bedfellow.
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  Having listened to a wide-ranging debate, I still cannot understand how even the most ardent Socialist can justify diverting massive resources away from the desperate areas of social and industrial need. Are the Government so awash with money that they can afford the luxury of investing thousands of millions of pounds in profitable sectors which neither need nor welcome it?
  Mr. Robert Hughes: Why is it that it is in some way shameful for the Government to invest in profitable industry with an opportunity to recover a profit but a good thing for private individuals to do so?
  Mr. Nelson: I do not believe that the Government have limitless funds. They have limited resources from raising taxes and borrowing on the market, so it is an implicit assumption that we should use that money to the maximum benefit of the community and the industrial society. The money is best used not by pumping further investment into profitable companies which do not need or want it but by putting the money where it is desperately needed and where its expenditure can be more easily justified.
  How, mechanically, will the NEB acquire these stakes in profitable companies? Will it make a partial bid in the market for a percentage of a company? Will it negotiate privately to acquire a block of shares before the announcement of the bid? Will it go into the market and purchase shares? In a contested situation, which is what the majority of cases would be because they do not actually need the money, what limit will there be on expenditure or the price that the NEB pays for a holding?
  These are vital factors. The NEB is no ordinary unit or investment trust. It will have criteria entirely different from those of the normal commercial board because it will have pushed into it certain strategic investments for political and not commercial reasons. It is the missing guidelines and criteria which should make the House cautious before agreeing with the Government to reinstate this subsection.
  I agree with Lord Aberdare that this subsection will do more than anything else to destroy confidence in the NEB and Government policy. Nor does it

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  concur with the intentions of Clause 2(1) or those stated in the White Paper. The regeneration of British industry has nothing to do with acquiring stakes in successful firms which do not need regeneration, thank you very much. We have no obligation as elected representatives to sanction money for that purpose.
  Mr. William Small: I want to give my views on whether or not the National Enterprise Board should enter profit-making industry. We used to talk about Britain's world role; now we talk about finding Britain's role in the world. The most obvious technology and capital that I see is in firms like Mitsubishi and Chrysler and the other big multinational corporations, every one of which has the trappings of a nation State. This is the competition that this country has to meet. Is the NEB more fitted for this task than private enterprise queueing up for subsidies and giving the impression of our industry continually going to the Minister's door with a begging bowl?
  Mr. Keith Stainton: We often tend to get this thing out of context. It should be borne in mind that the market capitalisation of, for example, ICI, even at present, is £1,400 million. This Bill will provide £1,000 million.
  Mr. Small: I was connected with ICI for 16 years and was entertained by the company only yesterday at a sort of old boys' lunch, so I am familiar with the so-called benevolent capitalism of ICI.
  I wish to draw attention to what is going on in the world, including ICI, which I am not criticising. It used to be said of Britain in the past, "I used to carry your bag, white man". The trade union movement is entitled to support sugar agreements and commodity price stabilisation. There must be an equal standard with people in the Western World. The horizon of the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) is his own garden fence. Trade unionists have an international face. We must ensure the quality of standards and prices and the rate for the job.
  The NEB can help in locating industry where it is needed. It is not subject to the capricious whim of a particular board or interest. In the broader national
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  interest the NEB can marry capital and technology with the timing and location of industry where it is necessary on behalf of the nation.
  Mr. Mikardo: This has been a wide-ranging debate, because the amendments are wide-ranging. It is no wonder that the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) made what is virtually a Second Reading speech, because the amendments create a de facto Second Reading situation. It is not surprising that he and other hon. Members addressed themselves beyond the words of the amendments to the fundamental question of whether we want the NEB or the Bill, because the nature of the amendments is predisposed towards that. One might say in parenthesis that this raises the wider question of whether their Lordships have not in recent times been exceeding their function of acting as a revising Chamber, in seeking to challenge the decisions of the nation as expressed at a General Election. However, that is a wider and different question to which we may have to turn our attention at a later and more appropriate time.
  As we have been considering the necessity of the whole Bill and as a serious and cogent though incorrect analysis by the hon. Member for Henley was met by an equally serious and even more cogent and correct analysis by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), it is worth pursuing the arguments a little further and looking harder at the basis of the case which the hon. Member for Henley put forward.
  The hon. Member for Henley spoke at one stage of a mixed economy with an inefficient public sector and an efficient private sector. Let us examine that proposition. I am the last person to say that I believe that the public sector is as efficient as it should be. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) reminded the House of the considerable studies that were made in that regard a few years ago by a Committee of which he and I were both members. The Committee posed many questions which up to that time had not been answered. Some of them are still unanswered.
  Anyone who sets out to suggest that an industry is automatically efficient because it is publicly or privately owned, or who suggests that there is automatically

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  some change in efficiency for the better or the worse when an industry is changed from private to public ownership, or vice versa, is talking out of the back of his neck, as anyone who has worked in industry will know.
  Of course, there are some factors which present different areas of scope and opportunity for the management of industry in the public and private sectors. However much the Opposition and leading articles in the Daily Telegraph may ignore the situation, with all the defects of the public sector—no one is more conscious of them than those who have dug into them as deeply as some hon. Members and I have dug—it is an indisputable fact, backed by all the statistics available, that no matter how we measure efficiency by the not very complete yardsticks which we have—by productivity, by effective returns out of each machine hour and each machine pound—by and large, with some exceptions on both sides, the record of the public sector over the past 10 years has been better than that of the private sector.
  6.45 p.m.
  If one wants support for that proposition one only has to look at the speeches of the Conservative Ministers for Departments sponsoring publicly-owned industries during the Government of 1970–74. I say that specifically to the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King), who is querying this fact from a sedentary position. One finds those Ministers, one after the other, paying the most glowing tributes to their management and men in the publicly-owned industries for which they were responsible. Although the hon. Member for Bridgwater may sometimes eat his own words, as we saw and heard in Committee, he ain't got a tummy big enough to eat all the words of all the Tory Ministers who paid those glowing tributes to the nationalised industries.
  Mr. Ridley: As one of those Ministers, I am not aware of the tributes that I am supposed to have paid. May I excuse some of my right hon. and hon. Friends by saying that speeches which are courteous are prepared by the civil servants and it takes a hard man to cut out the courtesies. However, when we get away from the courtesies, would not the hon. Gentleman at least go as far as to
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  agree that what he has been saying is highly contentious? If no one from the Opposition intervened, he might take it that we agree with him. I have no doubt that once an industry moves from the private to the public sector is suffers a serious reversal in its efficiency and finances and in the call it makes upon the nation for fresh sources of finance.
  Mr. Mikardo: I know that that is the hon. Gentleman's belief. I have heard him make the point for years. I merely observe that his belief is not supported by the factual evidence that has been produced under both Conservative and Labour Governments. Of course, I exempt him from the general statement that I have just made. I would never charge the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) with the crime of paying tribute to anybody or anything, because he does not ever do it. However, many other Conservative Members did do so. Their speeches are on record, and they tend to reinforce strongly the general proposition that I have put forward.
  Let us examine the efficient private sector. Dare I, in the presence of right hon. and hon. Conservative Members, whisper the words "Rolls-Royce"? Rolls-Royce got into trouble over making the crudest error than any business management could ever make—quoting a fixed price for a product without knowing what it would cost. Was that a great piece of efficiency?
  Hon. Gentlemen opposite talk about it being horrible for the State to intervene in the private sector. I remind them that it was a Conservative Government, not a Labour Government, who nationalised Rolls-Royce, and did it in a single day. Moreover, they did it without paying any compensation to the shareholders. No Labour Minister would have dared to do that for fear of being criticised by the Daily Express.
  If Conservative Members have not heard the whisper of the name of Rolls-Royce, there are many other names which I could mention. I refrain from mentioning them only because, as the House knows, I am a kindly old man who does not like hurting people's feelings. However, many other companies could be mentioned in that regard.

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  What is this co-called efficient private sector? It is a sector which, measured against the standards of its competitors, has not achieved enough productivity, investment or export sales in relation to its capacity. That is not a success story. Of course, within the global picture, individual companies and establishments are success stories. God bless them all. We need more of them. However, the global picture is by no means a success story.
  If the Bill were not needed for any other purpose, it would certainly be needed for the purpose of improving the level of productive investment in British industry. Contrary to what was suggested by the hon. Member for Henley, nothing that successive Governments have been able to do—the hon. Gentleman said that it ought to be done by persuasion and so on—by cajolery or bribery has succeeded in getting an adequate amount of investment out of the private sector, just as none of the grants, loans and the rest of the concessions did. Goodness me, at one period firms could get back over 100 per cent. of what they spent on investment, and still they did not invest. Nothing which has been done has achieved enough investment, just as nothing which has been done by way of cajolery or bribery has succeeded in getting enough diversion of British industry into the regions where it is most needed.
  I should be the first to agree that if it could have been done without statutory intervention it would have been better. But successive Governments have tried everything, including giving grants—but that did not last long—of more than 100 per cent.
  The hon. Member for Henley—we hear this so often from many quarters; indeed, some of us who were invited to talk to the chaps at the London Chamber of Commerce yesterday heard it there—said "It is because we do not get enough surplus in industry to justify expansion. The wicked Labour Government, by controlling our prices and taxing us so heavily, do not leave us enough surplus." That would be a convincing argument if the failure of British industry to invest started from February 1974. But it did not, did it? It has been there since the beginning of this century.
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  Since the beginning of this century investment in British industry as a percentage of its resources has been lower than that of our main industrial competitors. That has been true under both Labour and Tory Governments. That has been true in times of boom and in times of slump. That has been true when industry has been both more and less profitable.
  Let us look, for example, at the last period under the Conservative Government led by the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath). In the three calendar years 1971, 1972 and 1973 industry was given a bonanza by the Government. Does anyone still remember a Chancellor of the Exchequer called Anthony Barber? [An HON. MEMBER: "Who?"] He gave industry a huge bonanza. There were tremendous cuts in tax burdens. Hundreds of millions of pounds were refunded by way of allowances over and above the direct grants and other facilities. There were no price controls. Industry did very well, but in those three years the level of investment fell by one-third.
  If we want to examine seriously why British industry does not invest, we must get rid of the shibboleth that this is a recent phenomenon. It is not. We must also get rid of the shibboleth that there is a causal connection between profitability and investment. The whole history of British industry since the turn of the century shows that. There ought to be a causal connection. It seems natural and what one would expect. But we must get rid of the shibboleth that there is a causal connection betwen the level of profitability and of investment, because the record shows that there is no such causal connection. The plain fact of the matter is that in good times and in bad, with tough Chancellors like the present one and Father Christmas Chancellors like Anthony Barber, Labour Governments and Conservative Governments, sticks and carrots, bribery and cajolery, we have not so far found a way of getting the private sector of British industry to invest enough.
  If we cannot get those in industry to do it, unhappily we must do it for them. The NEB and planning agreements are a formula for doing for industry what we have manifestly failed to persuade it to do for itself.

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  I repeat, there are other values in the Bill; but if there were no other justification, there is justification enough. This is enough to justify any hon. Member who values the powers and privileges of this House—above all, the privilege of speaking with the voice of the people, because we were elected by the people—in saying that their Lordships had no business to go so much beyond their function as a revising Chamber and seeking, by these amendments, to frustrate the manifest will of the people.
  Mr. Tom Litterick: I will try to be brief. I should like first to reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore) about these amendments. They propose that the National Enterprise Board shall not establish an industrial undertaking, shall not extend public ownership in profitable areas, and shall not form corporate bodies. With the fourth element, proposed in an amendment which we shall shortly be considering regarding industrial democracy, there would be nothing left of the Industry Bill.
  7.0 p.m.
  I remind the House that this Bill is a very faded copy of the original White Paper which, I suggest, was an extremely moderate document.
  From the reception the White Paper and the Bill received when they were first printed one would have thought we were announcing a revolution. The Bill is moderate even by the standards of Western European practice. In view of the performance of Opposition Members the House should be reminded that the Bill is pretty moderate in relation to the performance of the Tory parties in Western Europe in the conduct of relationships between the State and industry. In June this year the House was told that the Italian version of the NEB had nationalised 1,146 companies in the past 15 years, taken a controlling interest in another 150 companies and a significant shareholding in 50 more. Yet Italy has not had a Socialist Government. Since the war it has had nothing but Tory Governments. I find it hard to believe that hon. Members opposite do not know this.
  I also find it hard to believe their protestations of undying devotion to the con-
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  cept that profitability is the essential device in allocating resources; I find it hard in view of what they have done in the past. They are pursuing a propaganda objective. They would have their supporters in the country believe that the detestation of public enterprise they express so vehemently in the House is genuine and that the version of public enterprise presented in this Bill is extreme and peculiar to the British Labour Party.
  It is not. It is similar to that in Italy, France, Belgium and even West Germany, where Federal Government have taken a controlling interest in scores of firms, and provincial Governments, which have the same powers, have also taken significant interests in commercial undertakings in order to fulfil the function that this Bill is hoping to fulfil for the British people—to interpose public values between the public and those people who operate the commercial profit-pursuing system.
  Their Lordships object to this, but it is none of their business. Nobody elected them, and they have no right to set out in effect to destroy a major piece of proposed legislation. They ought to think very carefully about their constitutional position. This is far more important than anything we discussed last week. I strenuously object to the Lord defining their rôle in our constitutional structure in this way.
  Much has been said about the failure of public enterprise. My hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) went a long way to counter those arguments. The confusion of hon. Members opposite hinges on their peculiar doctrinaire attachment to the belief that there is one way of measuring efficiency—profit. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) has left the Chamber. If he consulted the Harvard Business School, which is probably his spiritual Kremlin, he would find that not even it recognises that profit alone should be seen as a measure of efficiency. It would insist on some other aspects being taken into account, including social considerations. This is from Harvard, not Moscow.
  Hon. Members opposite pretend that we on this side are peculiar, that the situation in Britain is unique, that political

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  influence in British industry is the cardinal influence and that it is a wholly bad one. They seek to prevent the British people from knowing the extent of State intervention, particularly State intervention by Conservative Governments, throughout Western Europe. Perhaps this is because they would be embarrassed if they learned that the Italian economy which, not long ago, was recognised as one of the so-called miracle economies was being fuelled by a vigorous State sector and that this was one of the major reasons for the sudden improvement in the Italian economy. It would also be embarrassing for them to look at the role of the State in other Western European countries.
  It is time that the Opposition were honest with their supporters and talked in serious and sophisticated terms about the proper means of allocating capital resources and the proper role of the State as a catalytic and constructive element and followed the efforts of Tory Governments elsewhere in Western Europe. To try to make a simple black and white comparison between public and private industry is fatuous and misleading and performs no public service. There is nothing magic about either public or private enterprise per se. We seek to interpose social values between the harsh priorities of the market and the other priorities of all the people, including hon. Members opposite, some of whom may well become redundant in the not too distant future.
  I was born in Clydebank in 1929 which was, as they say, the seminal year when the behind fell out of the whole system. I do not claim any causal connection between the two events. I spent the first decade of my life in the Clyde Valley and my family endured the consequences of the collapse of a system which was not operating under a burden of taxation remotely comparable to that of today. Yet it collapsed. The situation was not peculiar to Britain or the Clyde Valley. It was world-wide. Would hon. Members opposite seriously suggest that the collapse was caused by the existence of trade unions or high taxation? Of course not. The recovery was only effected by somebody called Adolf Hitler, not by the mechanism of the system itself.
  When Keynes characterised the investing public as an ignorant rabble—and he
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  should have known, because he made three fortunes and lost two—he was referring to the limitations of the private investor as an allocator of resources. Such an investor was unable, through his imperfect knowledge and narrow view and motivation, to make investment decisions that made any sense. Keynes offered a prescription which turned out to be a delusion. The system was shored up by post-war reconstruction expenditure and later by massive armaments expenditure. Now that it is declining the inability of the private, profit-motivated system to allocate resources and sustain employment is revealed once again.
  Clydebank suffered from the so-called free enterprise system, and I now represent a part of the city of Birmingham which is suffering in precisely the same way as did my home town more than a generation ago. Municipalities tell us that the industrial base is too narrow and that there is no new technology. The classic weaknesses are appearing once again. There is no investment, indeed there is de-investment. I presume the hon. Member for Bromsgrove and Red-ditch (Mr. Miller) was not being quite as doctrinaire as he sounded when he expressed his objections to public enterprise, since many of his constituents' jobs depend on public enterprise in Birmingham. The city of Birmingham will not be allowed to go the way the Clyde Valley was allowed to go. I do not claim that the Industry Bill is the whole answer. However, we have a responsibility to the city of Birmingham to Dass this Bill giving the State powers to intervene to prevent the further collapse of entire communities resulting from the failure of the private capitalist system.
  Mr. Hal Miller: If the hon. Gentleman had listened to my speech with more attention he would have heard my remark to the effect that I was interested not in ownership but in performance and efficiency. I hope that he will bear that in mind.
  Mr. Varley: I sense that the House would like a Division on this group of amendments. It would be impossible for me to cover all the aspects raised. This has been a wide-ranging debate. I make no complaint. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) said that the amendments went to the heart of the

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  Bill. There were references to steel, coal, NVT, British Leyland, shipbuilding, the Welsh Development Agency, the Scottish Development Agency, the Scottish Daily News, and pottery for the House of Commons. I do not intend to take up all those points. However, I shall deal with one matter which some hon. Members regard as serious. I refer to the question of the guidelines for the NEB.
  We debated the question of the NEB guidelines on Report. The matter was raised in Committee. Consultations are taking place with both sides of industry. We are also consulting the organising committee of the NEB. When those consultations have taken place, copies of the draft guidelines will be made available to both Houses of Parliament. That assurance should satisfy the hon. Members for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) and Chichester (Mr. Nelson).
  Mr. Stainton: Is the Minister referring to the powers of direction under Clause 6?
  Mr. Varley: The hon. Gentleman is correct. Effect will be given to the guidelines as a result of the powers contained in Clause 6.
  The hon. Member for Henley gave the impression that everything was fine, that if it were not for the Government, industrial investment would go up, that there would be no further shrinkage of our manufacturing base, that not only would there be greater investment but that the quality of investment would be improved and profitability would return. He knows that that is not true. The hon. Gentleman tried to create mischief. He said that industrial strategy had changed since I became responsible for the Department of Industry.
  The Government have demonstrated their attitude to the Bill. Although it does not meet all the wishes of Government supporters, in two respects it is a stronger Bill, although I accept that it is not entirely the kind of Bill which they wanted. However, the Bill will remain intact after we have rejected the Lords amendments.
  7.15 p.m.
  I agree that the Bill does not go all the way to put right all the problems of
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  British industry. However, I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) say that he hoped the NEB would not be a repository for "lame ducks". The document approved at the Labour Party Conference set out the role of the NEB. I despair when hon. Members approach me instancing firms in their constituencies which are in difficulties, and asking whether the NEB could become involved. I do not think that that should be the primary role of the NEB. That is why I welcome the document which was passed by the Labour Party conference.
  The hon. Member for Henley asked me to indicate a nationalised industry which showed a profit. He promised to look more kindly on the Bill if I could do so. Some nationalised industries have not shown profits—but that does not mean that there have been no profits from nationalised industries from time to time—as a result of massive interference by successive Governments, especially the Conservative Government.
  I remember the first Heath initiative on counter-inflation. The nationalised industries were pushed to the front. There was a CBI initiative. The nationalised industries were rigidly monitored and screwed down, although private industry was allowed to develop. Phase two was introduced and statutory controls were brought into the net. Our processing and supply industries are now experiencing problems as a result of the policies pursued by the last Tory Government. The difficulties of the telecommunications industry and the suppliers of electrical equipment arise from the interference by the last administration. I see that the hon. Gentleman acknowledges that.
  The hon. Member for Henley now says "Let us return to the Selsdon concept. If we can return to Selsdon everything will be all right." My hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo) made this plain. There was a period from 1970 to 1972, during the period of the Barber taxation reductions, when the Prime Minister and his Ministers pleaded with industry to increase investment. That did not happen. The hon. Gentleman now says that provided we can return to that policy and give it another chance, everything will come right. The hon. Gentleman not only

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  rejects this involvement in industry; he rejects some of the overall Treasury strategy arguments.
  We know what happened. I make a bet that the hon. Gentleman will not tell us now that a possible incoming Conservative Government will not take over any aspects of British industry. I should be interested to know, if there were a case comparable with that of Rolls-Royce under a future Conservative Government, whether the hon. Gentleman would give a pledge that a Conservative Government would not interfere. He would not say that. He cannot say so. Anybody who supposes that there will never be further intervention by any Government in industry is living in a fool's paradise.
  The hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) referred to profits. There was a titter when he said that profits must be generated. I do not think that there is much difference between the Government and the Opposition on that matter. We want to get industry moving ahead again. We want to stop the contraction of our manufacturing base. We wish to expand it. We want the NEB to move into profitable industry and to improve the amount and quality of investment, so as to achieve the aims which the members of the Labour Party hold dear. If we do not do so we shall finish up with seedy and tatty social services and a poor educational system. That is why we must get industry moving ahead as quickly as possible.
  I am tempted to comment on the remarks of the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley). It is always easy to twit the hon. Gentleman, as he was a Minister in the Department of Trade and Industry when he embarked on the most devastating intervention in industry carried out by a Conservative Government. He had just left. He may have been sacked. I wonder whether he would have sat there and taken the Industry Act 1972, and the nationalisation of the Govan Shipbuilders. It is said that before the 1970 General Election the hon. Gentleman wrote an article or pamphlet which said that Upper Clyde Shipbuilders must be butchered. Not long after that the right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) nationalised that concern. I fear that unless nationalisation occurs in the industry we shall end up with no shipbuilding industry at all.
  562
  Of course, we have to have secure jobs, and we can get secure jobs only on the basis of getting inflation under control, improving investment and the quality of investment, and ensuring that working practices are such that we get the best out of that investment. The trade unions are facing that question.
  Mr. Ridley: How are we to do that?
  Mr. Varley: We can do that only by using the instruments positively and recruiting wide co-operation from the work force. We have to move ahead with the NEB, planning agreements, industrial democracy and all the other policies which the Labour Party holds near and dear. That is the only way forward for the country.
  Mr. Ridley: The Minister twitted me—it was not a very effective twit—but will he answer my speech? Does he condemn the blastfurnace men at Llanwern? What will he do to make sure that a destructive refusal to use plant in the public sector does not occur again? Otherwise there is no point in public investment.
  Mr. Varley: The hon. Gentleman suggested that my twit was not very effective, but I have a long list of subjects on which to twit him. The Llanwern dispute is subject to an inquiry. The hon. Gentleman should know better than to expect me, as a Minister, to comment on a steel industry dispute which is the subject of an inquiry. I go with him as far as this: if the British steel industry is to be competitive, if it is to produce steel in sufficient quantities, and if its performance is to be comparable with that of the steel industries in Germany and France, it can be achieved only on the basis of using investment in the industry much more constructively. The hon. Gentleman knows better than to think I shall comment on the dispute when it is sub judice. He knows that he could not do so if he were in my position.
  The hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) said that he was in favour of the Welsh Development Agency but was not quite sure about the National Enterprise Board. We get tired of hearing the national parties in the House exploiting every little opportunity. The

  563
  members of Plaid Cymru run round Wales, to Ebbw Vale and Shotton, stirring up trouble and interfering, just to create difficulties, in the belief that they are enhancing the future of their party.
  Is the hon. Gentleman really arguing against the concept of greater public involvement? He probably is. When he first came to the House with his hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Evans), I was told that members of Plaid Cymru were not like the Scottish Nationals, who were wishy-washy and a bit Tory, a bit Liberal and a bit Labour. I was told that the Members of Plaid Cmyru were red-blooded Socialists. Are they telling us now that they will vote against the establishment of the NEB?
  Mr. Wigley: I am not sure what source of information the Minister has for what he was told when my hon. Friend and I first came to the House. I shall not comment on that. I merely suggest that he examines our policies. In my speech I asked him two questions, on which I should be grateful for his comments. Are the powers of the NEB as affected by Lords Amendment No. 11 relevant to Wales? Will Lords Amendment No. 12 be effective in Wales, or will the powers be channelled through the Welsh Development Agency? Power to extend the ownership of companies, which is covered by Amendment No. 11 is possessed by the Welsh Development Agency. I do not want to see duplication. Will the Minister give me a categorical assurance that the NEB will not be involved in Wales on those two matters?
  Mr. Varley: I hope the hon. Gentleman realises what he is asking. He supports the Welsh Development Agency, which will have an important role to play in establishing new industry, but he suggests that the NEB does not have any role. That is a very narrow approach, which would defeat the objectives which he supports. It is impossible to define it in that way. The NEB will be there for the benefit of the four countries in the United Kingdom. For example, it will immediately take Rolls-Royce under its wing. I do not know whether Rolls-Royce operates in Wales, but it operates in Scotland. It is proper, therefore, that the Board should take an interest in
  564
  Scotland. Industry spans the borders of Wales and England and the borders of Scotland and England, and the NEB has a role to play. The hon. Gentleman seems to be saying "Clear out the NEB from Wales and let the WDA take everything over". It is not possible to do that, and it would be extremely damaging to Welsh industry if that were so.
  Mr. Crawford: The Minister said that the NEB will take an interest in companies based in England with factories in Scotland. Will the SDA take an interest in companies based in Scotland and operated in England? I am thinking of DCL, Babcock and Wilcox, and Burmah Oil.
  Mr. Varley: I cannot answer that question without notice. I understand that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the SDA on the grounds that it will increase industrial potential and activity and extend industry in Scotland. If that is so, NEB involvement should be welcome in Scotland.
  Mrs. Hart: Does not my hon. Friend think that the Scottish National Party—I do not know so much about Plaid Cymru—is utterly confused? If the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Crawford) looks at the analysis of the number of major conglomerates with centres in Scotland and Wales he will realise that unless the NEB is able to operate in Scotland and Wales, from the base of the centre of the conglomerates in England, nothing will come to the Scottish Development Agency.
  Mr. Varley: That is a powerful point, and I have nothing to add to it. I think that the hon. Member for Caernarvon is a red-blooded Socialist gone wrong. I hope that Plaid Cymru will check up and think carefully before voting with the Conservatives tonight.
  The hon. Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller) dragged in Norton Villiers Triumph. He gave the impression that the problems of the motor cycle industry started in March 1974, but the problems of NVT are the problems of British industry—sectoral retreat, low investment and the pursuit of short-term profits. That is what happened with NVT, and it is happening in a large section of British industry. We are

  565
  pledged to reverse that trend, and the NEB will help us to do so.
  Mr. Hal Miller: I agree with the Minister's diagnosis on what happened in the motor cycle industry but the question I asked, which he has not answered, is: how did Govenment action help, and how will NEB action help? Government support for a third factory effectively ruined the other two. That is a simple question.
  Mr. Varley: I expect the hon. Gentleman has read the report of the Boston Consulting Group, which highlights his own prejudice when he says that all these problems started in March 1974. He knows in his heart that that is not so. The problems of the motor cycle industry started a long time ago, with Sir Bernard Docker, Lord Shawcross, and so on, and the difficult decision which Mr. Christopher Chataway had to take when he decided to try to preserve it. It is the classic problem of British industry—sectoral retreat, low investment and short-term profits, and the NEB—provided it selects its partners properly and acts commercially—will be able to prevent that, albeit in a small way in the beginning. There is no doubt that as it develops and expands it will have an important rôle to play.
  When the House has rejected these Lords amendments we shall establish an opportunity for public enterprise to compete on equal terms with the private sector.
  7.30 p.m.
  Mr. Tom King: The House has taken a long time on this series of amendments. I know that it wishes to move to a decision. A number of hon. Members have emphasised that this is the key debate in the series of amendments that we are discussing. Therefore, we should make no apologies for the time that has been spent on these amendments. We should also be grateful to their Lordships for giving us the opportunity to discuss these issues again. It ill becomes members of the Government, especially those who are Ministers in the Government—bearing in mind the mess the Bill was in, because their representative in the other place had to apologise for it—to take exception to the amendments that their Lordships have sent back to us.
  566
  Moreover, when we consider, as their Lordships might, that the issues we have discussed tonight were presented to the Committee by a completely different set of Ministers from those we now face across the Dispatch Box and who are justifying the policies, there are good reasons why this matter should have been reconsidered by us tonight.
  A matter which the Secretary of State did not answer but which is central to the debate is why the Minister of State in the other place said that successful companies would not be acquired by the NEB and that there was no case for successful and profitable companies to be acquired because they would not need to be regenerated. Some Labour Members have complained that their Lordships are being unreasonable. Their Lordships are being prudent, because if there was no case for successful and profitable companies to be acquired it was wise of them to strike out the inclusion of that subsection. The Government Front Bench seems to be having discussions to decide what was said on that occasion. The matter should be clarified.
  I understand the concern expressed by hon. Members of the Scottish and Welsh National Parties over this matter. At the first meeting in Committee the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) asked about the relationship of the NEB and the Welsh Development Agency. The same problem arises with the Scottish Development Agency. We have reached the end of the Bill and we are dealing with the Lords amendments. I do not know whether hon. Members are satisfied, but I am no clearer about that relationship. The Secretary of State has said tonight, at the end of the legislative process of the Bill, that there will be some guidelines. Parliament is being asked to approve the establishment of the NEB. At the beginning of all the discussion on this matter we were told that there would be guidelines, and the then Secretary of State mentioned that there might be a White Paper. There was then his rapid departure and all the kerfuffle that went with it, which is all part of the history of the Bill. Suddenly we are told that the guidelines are not ready and that at some stage they will be issued. Once again we are being asked to pass a blank cheque. When the Secretary of State starts talking about red-blooded Socialism, we

  567
  wonder how strong it runs in different veins of members of the Labour Party.
  We welcome the presence of the right hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), who played a major part in the original policy formation of the Bill. We missed her in Committee and we listened with interest to what she said today. However, having listened to her and to some of her hon. Friends, including the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and the hon. Member for Luton, West (Mr. Sedgemore), we find it impossible to accept their views. They believe that the private sector is doomed to extinction, and the sooner the better. How does that reconcile with the Government's pledge for a profitable, vigorous and successful private sector?
  Those views are irreconcilable because there is a total divide between the views as expressed by the Prime Minister, as restated by the Secretary of State, and the views of those who believe that the private sector is doomed to failure. The alternative that is being put forward has no truth or evidence behind it. It was Aneurin Bevan who said that it was not necessary to look into the crystal ball when one could read the book.
  The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Litterick) had the nerve to quote the IRI as an example of the way the NEB would go. In the past five years the IRI has not once shown a better return on its assets than half of 1 per cent. Therefore, if a vast amount of our assets and wealth is tied up in activities that produce no wealth for the country, how shall we have anything other than tatty social services and social provision in this country?
  It is against that background that we listened with interest to find out whether, for the first time, we would receive a cogent explanation and justification of the policy of more nationalisation and the acquisition of profitable and successful companies. The right hon. Member for Lanark analysed the present situation in British industry. We have had similar analyses before, but the right hon. Lady amplified it in some respects. Then the argument stops. This happens in every case. Suddenly we are told "It is not quite what we want "or" British industry is not progressing as well as we want. Therefore the answer is State involve-
  568
  ment and State ownership." There has never been a logical explanation of why that should be the case.
  We argue that the onus of proof is on the Government and the Labour Party. It is not surprising that so many people in this country are concerned and have real doubts about whether that is the answer for our industry. Labour Members point to other countries and ask why we are not doing as well, but every example they point to is a classic example of free enterprise and private sector companies succeeding.
  The other argument is that perhaps there might be security of employment. The hon. Member for Walton had the nerve to ask who was sacking people at present. He said it was private industry—in the very week when the Post Office has announced the early retirement of 18,000 of its employees, when the Central Electricity Generating Board has announced a massive closure of power stations and when workers of the British Steel Corporation at Ebbw Vale have been dismissed, as the hon. Member for Caernarvon mentioned. The pretence that has been held out and the clear answer that if we support nationalisation it will give security of employment has surely been destroyed during the past two weeks.
  Mr. Heffer: The hon. Gentleman knows full well that I did not say that it was only private enterprise. I pointed out that the crisis that has been developing for the past three decades, and which has given rise to massive unemployment and closures in, for example, British Leyland and NVT, has been brought about by private enterprise concerns. My argument was that Conservative Members have been trying to prove how healthy private enterprise was.
  Mr. King: If the hon. Gentleman were to look at the unemployment figures for the six years of Labour Government from 1964 to 1970 he would find that the jobs lost in the public sector were of the order of 600,000 but that unemployment increased by 200,000, because 400,000 new jobs were created in the private sector in that period. If the hon. Gentleman wants to allocate the blame, he should get his facts right.
  Against this background we are entitled to ask what justification there can

  569
  be for moving into this area. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) asked how there could be any more pointless or wasteful way to spend more money, particularly tonight, when there are present one or two distinguished visitors who, we hope, might help us out in one or two directions—we know that the Government are acutely short of funds—than merely to acquire existing successful companies that have no need of those funds. The idea that somehow the Government have money to spare for these activities is laughable.
  This is not a matter of economic judgment. It is entirely the political belief of the Labour Party. In the end, the Labour Party will say that the onus of proof is not its responsibility because it is all in its manifesto. That manifesto was supported by 28 per cent. of the people. One is entitled to ask how many of that 28 per cent. read it and were aware of the small print. Certainly one is entitled to point out that the main claim in the first of last year's two Labour
  Party manifestos, which may have had rather more effect than the small print about pay beds, nationalisation of the aircraft and shipbuilding industries and the NEB, was the slogan "Back to work with Labour". That must have a hollow ring for the 1,250,000 unemployed.
  Every Minister of this Government now and in the future when claiming the mandate of the manifesto for a policy should remember that the manifesto was a mandate for full employment. That has been the biggest failure of all. It is against that background that investment in private manufacturing industry by the NEB is the grossest irrelevance which will do great damage to industry and the country. We therefore strongly oppose the Government's intentions.
  Question put, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment:—
  The House divided: Ayes 265, Noes 253.

  Division No. 351.]

  AYES

  [7.44 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Cronin, John

  Graham, Ted

  Allaun, Frank

  Cryer, Bob

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Anderson, Donald

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Archer, Peter

  Davidson, Arthur

  Grocott, Bruce

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Ashley, Jack

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

  Harper, Joseph

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Atkinson, Norman

  Deakins, Eric

  Hart, Rt Hon Judith

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Hatton, Frank

  Bates, Alf

  Delargy, Hugh

  Hayman, Mrs Helene

  Bean, R. E.

  Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Dempsey, James

  Horam, John

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Doig, Peter

  Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sin H)

  Bishop, E. S.

  Dormand, J. D.

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Boardman, H.

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N)

  Booth, Albert

  Dunn, James A.

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

  Dunnett, Jack

  Hunter, Adam

  Boyden, James (Bish Auck)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

  Bradley, Tom

  Eadie Alex

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Edelman, Maurice

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Edge, Geoff

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Janner, Greville

  Buchanan, Richard

  English, Michael

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Ennais, David

  Jeger, Mrs Lena

  Campbell, Ian

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  John, Brynmor

  Cant, R. B.

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Carmichael, Neil

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Johnson, Walter (Derby 3)

  Carter, Ray

  Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Cartwright, John

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

  Flannery, Martin

  Judd, Frank

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Kelley, Richard

  Cohen, Stanley

  Ford, Ben

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Coleman, Donald

  Forrester, John

  Kinnock, Nell

  Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

  Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

  Lambie, David

  Concannon, J. D.

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

  Lamborn, Harry

  Conian, Bernard

  Freeson, Reginald

  Lamond, James

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  George, Bruce

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Corbett, Robin

  Gilbert, Dr John

  Lee, John

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  Ginsburg, David

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

  Gould, Bryan

  Lever, Rt Hon Harold

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Gourlay, Harry

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Ovenden, John

  Strang, Gavin

  Litterick, Tom

  Owen, Dr David

  Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

  Loyden, Eddie

  Padley, Walter

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Luard, Evan

  Park, George

  Swain, Thomas

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Parker, John

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Parry, Robert

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  McCartney, Hugh

  Pendry, Tom

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  McElhone, Frank

  Perry, Ernest

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  Phipps, Dr Colin

  Tierney, Sydney

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Tomlinson, John

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Tomney, Frank

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Toiney, Tom

  Maclennan, Robert

  Radice, Giles

  Tuck, Raphael

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  McNamara, Kevin

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Madden, Max

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

  Magee, Bryan

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Mahon, Simon

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Ward, Michael

  Marks, Kenneth

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Watkins, David

  Marquand, David

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Watkinson, John

  Marshall, Dr. Edmund (Goole)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Weetch, Ken

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Rose, Paul B.

  Weitzman, David

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Meacher, Michael

  Rowlands, Ted

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Sandelson, Neville

  White, James (Pollok)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Millan, Bruce

  Selby, Harry

  Whitlock, William

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E. Kilbride)

  Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

  Willey, Rt Hon FredericK

  Molloy, William

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

  Moonman, Eric

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Silkln, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford]

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Sillars, James

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Silverman, Julius

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Moyle, Roland

  Skinner, Dennis

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Small, William

  Woof, Robert

  Newens, Stanley

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Noble, Mike

  Snape, Peter

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Spearing, Nigel

  Ogden, Eric

  Spriggs, Leslie

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian

  Stallard, A. W.

  Mr. Lanrie Pavitt and

  Orbach, Maurice

  Stoddart, David

  Miss Betty Boothroyd.

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Stott, Roger

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

  Alison, Michael

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

  Arnold, Tom

  Cockcroft, John

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Speithorne)

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Awdry, Daniel

  Cope, John

  Godber, Rt Hon Joseph

  Bain Mrs Margaret

  Cordle, John H.

  Goodhart, Philip

  Baker, Kenneth

  Cormack, Patrick

  Goodhew, Victor

  Banks, Robert

  Crawford, Douglas

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Beith, A. J.

  Critchley, Julian

  Gorst, John

  Bell, Ronald

  Crouch, David

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Crowder, F. P.

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Biffen, John

  Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

  Grant Anthony (Harrow C)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

  Gray, Hamish

  Blaker, Peter

  Dodsworth, Geoffrey

  Grieve, Percy

  Body, Richard

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Grimond, Rt Hon j

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Drayson, Burnaby

  Grist, Ian

  Bottomley, Peter

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Hall, Sir John

  Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

  Dunlop, John

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Durant, Tony

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Bradford, Rev Robert

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Hannam, John

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

  Brittan, Leon

  Elliott, Sir William

  Hastings, Stephen

  Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

  Emery, Peter

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Brotherton, Michael

  Eyre, Reginald

  Hawkins, Paul

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Fell, Anthony

  Henderson, Douglas

  Buck, Antony

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Heseltine, Michael

  Budgen, Nick

  Fisher, Sir Niger

  Hicks, Robert

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Hordern, Peter

  Burden, F. A.

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Carlisle, Mark

  Fox, Marcus

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Carr, Rt Hon Robert

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Hunt, John

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Fry, Peter

  Hurd, Douglas

  Churchill, W. S.

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Sinclair, Sir George

  James, David

  Moore, John (Croydon C)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Jessel, Toby

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)

  Morgan, Geraint

  Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

  Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

  Speed, Keith

  Jopling, Michael

  Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Sproat, Iain

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

  Stainton, Keith

  Kilfedder, James

  Mudd, David

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Kimball, Marcus

  Neave, Airey

  Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Neubert, Michael

  Stokes, John

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Newton, Tony

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

  Nott, John

  Tapsell, Peter

  Knox, David

  Onslow, Cranley

  Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

  Lamont, Norman

  Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

  Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

  Lane, David

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Pardoe, John

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Latham, Michael (Melton)

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Penhallgon, David

  Thompson, George

  Lawson, Nigel

  Percival, Ian

  Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

  Lester Jim (Beeston)

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Townsend, Cyril D.

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Trotter, Neville

  Loveridge, John

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Luce, Richard

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  MacCormick, Iain

  Raison, Timothy

  Viggers, Peter

  McCrindle, Robert

  Rathbone, Tim

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

  Macfarlane, Nell

  Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Wakeham, John

  MacGregor, John

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Reid, George

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

  McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

  Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

  Wall, Patrick

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Walters, Dennis

  Madel, David

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Watt, Hamish

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Rifkind Malcolm

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Marten, Nell

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Wells, John

  Mates, Michael

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Welsh, Andrew

  Mather, Carol

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Maude, Angus

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Mawby, Ray

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Wood, Rt Hon Richard

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Scott, Nicholas

  Younger, Hon George

  Mills, Peter

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Shepherd, Colin

  Mr. Cecil Parkinson and

  Moate, Roger

  Shersby, Michael

  Mr. Fred Silvester.

  Molyneaux, James

  Sims, Roger

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 12, in page 2, line 40, leave out paragraph (c).
  Motion made, and Question put, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.—[Mr. Kaufman.]
  The House divided: Ayes 261, Noes 254.

  Division No. 352.]

  AYES

  [7.56 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Buchanan, Richard

  Davidson, Arthur

  Allaun, Frank

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Anderson, Donald

  Campbell, Ian

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

  Archer, Peter

  Canavan, Dennis

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Cant, R. B.

  Deakins, Eric

  Ashley, Jack

  Carmichael, Neil

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Carter, Ray

  Delargy, Hugh

  Atkinson, Norman

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Cartwright, John

  Dempsey, James

  Bates, Alf

  Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

  Doig, Peter

  Bean, R. E.

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Cohen, Stanley

  Dunn, James A.

  Bishop, E. S.

  Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

  Dunnett, Jack

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Concannon, J. D.

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Boardman, H.

  Conian, Bernard

  Eadie, Alex

  Booth, Albert

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Edelman, Maurice

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Corbett, Robin

  Edge, Geoff

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Boyden, James (Bish Auck)

  Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

  English, Michael

  Bradley, Tom

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Ennals, David

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Cronin, John

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Cryer, Bob

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Rose, Paul B.

  Filch, Alan (Wigan)

  Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

  McCartney, Hugh

  Rowlands, Ted

  Flannery, Martin

  McElhone, Frank

  Sandelson, Neville

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Selby, Harry

  Ford, Ben

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

  Forrester, John

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

  Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

  Maclennan, Robert

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Freeson, Reginald

  McNamara, Kevin

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  George, Bruce

  Madden, Max

  Sillars, James

  Gilbert, Or John

  Magee, Bryan

  Silverman, Julius

  Ginsburg, David

  Mahon, Simon

  Skinner, Dennis

  Gould, Bryan

  Mailalieu, J. P. W.

  Small, William

  Gourlay, Harry

  Marks, Kenneth

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Graham, Ted

  Marquand, David

  Snape, Peter

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Grocott, Bruce

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Stallard, A. W.

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Meacher, Michael

  Stoddart, David

  Harper, Joseph

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Stott, Roger

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Strang, Gavin

  Hart, Rt Hon Judith

  Millan, Bruce

  Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

  Hatton, Frank

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Hayman, Mrs Helene

  Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

  Swain, Thomas

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Molloy, William

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Horam, John

  Moonman, Eric

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Tierney, Sydney

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Moyle, Roland

  Tomlinson, John

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Tomney, Frank

  Hunter, Adam

  Newens, Stanley

  Torney, Tom

  Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

  Noble, Mike

  Tuck, Raphael

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Ogden, Eric

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoin)

  O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian

  Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

  Janner, Greville

  Orbach, Maurice

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Jeger, Mrs Lena

  Ovenden, John

  Ward, Michael

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Owen, Dr David

  Watkins, David

  John, Brynmor

  Padley, Walter

  Watkinson, John

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Park, George

  Weetch, Ken

  Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

  Parker, John

  Weitzman, David

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Parry, Robert

  Wellbeloved, James

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  White, James (Pollok)

  Judd, Frank

  Pendry, Tom

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Perry, Ernest

  Whitlock, William

  Kelley, Richard

  Phipps, Dr Colin

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Kllroy-Silk, Robert

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

  Kinnock, Neil

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

  Lambie, David

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

  Lamborn, Harry

  Radice, Giles

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Lamond, James

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Lee, John

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Woof, Robert

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Lipton, Marcus

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Litterick, Tom

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Loyden, Eddie

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Mr. Donald Coleman and

  Luard, Evan

  Rooker, J. W.

  Mr. J. D. Dormand.

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Churchill, W. S.

  Alison, Michael

  Bradford, Rev Robert

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Arnold, Tom

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Brittan, Leon

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Awdry, Daniel

  Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

  Cockcroft, John

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Brotherton, Michael

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Baker, Kenneth

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Cope, John

  Banks, Robert

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Cordle, John H.

  Beith, A. J.

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Cormack, Patrick

  Bell, Ronald

  Buck, Antony

  Crawford, Douglas

  Biffen, John

  Budgen, Nick

  Critchley, Julian

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Crouch, David

  Blaker, Peter

  Burden, F. A.

  Crowder, F. P.

  Body, Richard

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Carlisle, Mark

  Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

  Bottomley, Peter

  Carr, Rt Hon Robert

  Dodsworth, Geoffrey

  Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Drayson, Burnaby

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Reid, George

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

  Dunlop, John

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Durant, Tony

  Knox, David

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Lamont, Norman

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Lane, David

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Elliott, Sir William

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Emery, Peter

  Latham, Michael (Melton)

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Lawson, Nigel

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Fell, Anthony

  Loveridge, John

  Scott, Nicholas

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Luce, Richard

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  MacCormick, Iain

  Shepherd, Colin

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  McCrindle, Robert

  Shersby, Michael

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Silvester, Fred

  Fox, Marcus

  MacGregor, John

  Sims, Roger

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Fry, Peter

  McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Madel, David

  Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

  Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Speed, Keith

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

  Marten, Nell

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Mates, Michael

  Sproat, Iain

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Mather, Carol

  Stainton, Keith

  Godber, Rt Hon Joseph

  Maude, Angus

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Goodhart, Philip

  Mawby, Ray

  Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Stokes, John

  Gorst, John

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Tapsell, Peter

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Mills, Peter

  Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

  Gray, Hamish

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Grieve, Percy

  Moate, Roger

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Molyneaux, James

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Grist, Ian

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Thomas, Rt. Hon P. (Hendon S)

  Hall, Sir John

  Moore, John (Croydon C)

  Thompson, George

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Morgan, Geraint

  Townsend, Cyril D.

  Hannam, John

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

  Trotter, Neville

  Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

  Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Hastings, Stephen

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Hawkins, Paul

  Mudd, David

  Viggers, Peter

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Neave, Airey

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

  Henderson, Douglas

  Nelson, Anthony

  Wakeham, John

  Heseltine, Michael

  Neubert, Michael

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Hicks, Robert

  Newton, Tony

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

  Hordern, Peter

  Nott, John

  Wall, Patrick

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Onslow, Cranley

  Walters, Dennis

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

  Watt, Hamish

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Hunt, John

  Pardoe, John

  Wells, John

  Hurd, Douglas

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Welsh, Andrew

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Penhaligon, David

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Percival, Ian

  Wigley, Dafydd

  James, David

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Wilson Gordon (Dundee E)

  Jessel, Toby

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Wood, Rt Hon Richard

  Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

  Jopling, Michael

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Younger, Hon George

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Raison, Timothy

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Rathbone, Tim

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Kilfedder, James

  Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Mr. Anthony Berry and

  Kimball, Marcus

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Mr. Michael Roberts

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 13, in page 2, line 32, leave out "industrial democracy in" and insert
  "good industrial relations and the involvement of employees in the affairs of".
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  578
  The words "industrial democracy", which the amendment seeks to replace by a rather more nebulous concept, have been used deliberately in the Bill. The Government are committed to a far-reaching extension of industrial democracy in the public and private sectors of the economy. There are those, including myself, who believe that without a rapid extension of industrial democracy there

  579
  can be no future for productive industry. Industrial expansion depends on the work force participating in decisions. It is right that we should include the concept of industrial democracy as one of the objectives here. We are setting up a committee of inquiry to advise on the detailed implementation of the Government's objective, but the principle is a clear commitment and we intend to introduce legislation in the 1976–77 Session.
  Because the NEB will be expected to be amongst the first to implement the Government's proposals, the promotion of industrial democracy has been made a specific function of the Board. There still remains the question of the best form of organisation of industrial democracy, which will be one of the matters for investigation by the committee of inquiry, but this does not mean that the objective to which the Board should subscribe is not clear.
  The term "the involvement of employees" is a weak one. I am baffled that the other place should have decided to interfere with this provision. It is even more incomprehensible than are its attempts to remove the other central objectives, upon which we have just defeated them.
  Mr. Tom King: Do I understand from what the Minister has said that the Government are to decide what industrial democracy is in due course and then introduce some legislation in 1976–77, but that they now propose that we should agree to this term although no one will know what it will mean in 1976–77? Is that the Government's point?
  Mr. Kaufman: We are not proposing it tonight. We proposed it a long time ago, and the House of Commons agreed that it should be part of the Bill. Then along came the House of Lords, which has very little electoral democracy, let alone industrial democracy, and decided that the concept of industrial democracy should be removed from the Bill.
  Mr. Ron Thomas rose—
  Mr. Kaufman: I shall give way to my hon. Friend in a moment. I am sure that he will provide me with enlightenment. On the other hand it is necessary for me to purvey a little to the Opposition
  580
  benches before receiving an infusion from him. It is necessary for us to work towards the concept of industrial democracy in British industry. We can do so only by experimentation with different forms of such democracy. To lay down a rigid formula in the Bill is completely alien to an evolving concept. That does not mean that we should not provide for its inclusion, as one of the objectives in the Bill. We shall work towards it, and the National Enterprise Board will help in working out the form of industiral democracy. That will not always be the same.
  The form which is already being well worked out for British Leyland, and which Mr. Harry Urwin has described as the most advanced form of industrial democracy in British industry today, is not necessarily the ultimate form or the form most suited to other industries. The NEB, which will have a stake in all kinds of enterpirses, will be well suited to assist us in working towards a different concept of industrial democracy, even though the principle is one to which we are committed.
  Mr. Ron Thomas: Does my hon. Friend agree that the wording of the Bill is "promoting", and that that fits in exactly with what he has been saying?
  Mr. Kaufman: I told the House that my hon. Friend would infuse knowledge to me and he has done so, as he so often does. I am obliged to him.
  Mr. Stan Thorne: Can he have it in writing?
  Mr. Kaufman: Not only in writing-it will be in print by tomorrow morning, when my hon. Friend will be able to publish it throughout Bristol. As he knows, my endorsement will do him a great deal of good.
  I have spoken of the evolution of industrial democracy. "The involvement of employees" is far too weak a term. Industrial democracy is not just involvement. It is involvement in decision-making in a way that parallels political democracy and in a way which I hope will be paralleled in housing by tenant democracy. That is something towards which I hope we shall work. It means fundamental changes in attitude and in the balance of power and responsibility in industry.

  581
  There must be provision for the proper democratic respresentation of everyone who contributes to the performance and success of a company. In short, the difference between industrial democracy and employee involvement is the difference between sharing decisions and consulting about them. It is not simply involvement when and if it suits the company on terms dictated by the company in relatively unimportant areas of its activities.
  8.15 p.m.
  Mr. Adam Butler: We have had a lengthy debate, as was agreed on both sides, on the heart and kernel of the Bill. The subject of industrial democracy is also a vital one, but I suggest that this is not the occasion for us to indulge in a long debate. There will be other opportunities, and there are other matters which I know hon. Members wish to discuss before the guillotine falls. This matter was discussed at some length in Committee. During discussion of the Bills dealing with the Welsh and Scottish Development Agencies it was also debated whether we should use the term "industrial democracy", or something on the lines of the Lords amendment.
  The Minister said—I agree with him completely—that an improvement in industrial relations and the involvement to a great extent of employees in a company's affairs is probably a vital ingredient in our economic recovery. I believe that it will prove to be one of the essential parts of our future social and industrial scene. At first sight, it seems that in seeking to disagree with their Lordships the Government are rejecting the concept of improving industrial relations. That is obviously not so, but they do seek to remove this from the Bill in its present form.
  I suggest that what the Government are trying to do is to introduce a selective form of democracy. Neither the Minister nor his predecessor has defined what is meant by industrial democracy. It is questionable whether what the Government are after is democracy in the sense of involving everyone in the democratic process. We have no quarrel with the principle of extending democracy into industrial relations.
  Words like "participation" and "involvement" are associated with
  582
  democracy. Certainly they are the antithesis of dictatorship. They are words which we have used frequently over the years, in speeches, policy statements and legislation. I draw attention to the performance of the Conservative Government in this respect. In the Industrial Relations Act we provided for the disclosure of information, as this Bill seeks to do. In the code of practice, with its legislative backing, we recommended a wide practice of involvement and participation. We also proposed the establishment of joint consultative committees.
  Mr. Ron Thomas: As I recollect it, the Industrial Relations Act spoke of the disclosure of information. There was then a report by the CIR on the disclosure of information, and the matter was conveniently dropped.
  Mr. Butler: I think the hon. Member will find that the presentation of the report took a considerable time. It came out under the name of Sir Leonard Neal, who was Chairman of the CIR. It was an extremely valuable document, not only in drawing attention to what happens in other countries but in pointing to the way in which we might go.
  I draw to the attention of the House the fact that in the Conservative Health and Safety at Work, Etc. Bill—not the one that finally got through this House, having been amended in this important respect at the instigation of the Government—we imposed on employers the minimum duty to consult employees on safety matters. Therefore, I suggest that despite the clamour, and despite the myth to the contrary, in practice the Conservative Party has been more progressive than any party, and I believe that it is more progressive in its current thinking.
  We are also essentially practical in our approach to the subject, in our attitude to the way in which we should proceed further down the road of involving all employees to a greater extent. I agree with the Under-Secretary, although what he said does not necessarily accord with what some of his advisers and others might suggest, that it is not possible to produce a blueprint which will fit every works situation. We all know that the variety to be found in industry is infinite, and a single system is not possible.

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  I wish that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) were present. My colleagues and I on the Committee listened to him with varying degrees of interest and pleasure at different times, when he spoke in his capacity as Minister of State and then from the back benches. I recall his saying on one occasion that variety did not allow one to lay down a system. He said that there might be a situation which favoured a supervisory board, or there might be one which favoured a stockholding project. He realised that situations varied, and said that systems of industrial democracy, of involvement, should evolve from the factory floor.
  As far as we can make out, the hon. Gentleman's party, on the executive of which he now serves, is seeking to impose systems of democracy which will favour an elite of trade union members, rather than giving rights to all. The Undersecretary made the interesting remark that he wished to involve all those who contributed to the success or welfare of the business. Yet, in all the legislation which has so far emanated from his party on the subject, and in all the White Papers and consultative documents, the rights of involvement have been granted only to trade unionists. Will the Minister clarify his party's attitude? Is it that all employees should be involved, or only trade union members?
  Mr. Kaufman: All employees should be involved, and all employees should be trade unionists.
  Mr. Butler: That is the sort of trite answer one would expect from the hon. Gentleman, but we shall leave it at that. I thought for a moment that he was going to suggest that only trade unionists were useful people.
  Mr. Tom King: It is clear that the Under-Secretary has not read the report, in the House of Lords Hansard, of the speech by Lord Houghton, who recognised that one should not be critical of those who were not trade unionists. The noble Lord, with his great knowledge and experience of trade union activity, moved his own amendments exactly to the points that my hon. Friend is making.
  Mr. Butler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Nothing in our thinking excludes
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  trade unionists. We recognise that a trade union organisation lends itself particularly to the dissemination of information and the process of consultation among workers. Rather than excluding trade unionists, our philosophy includes them and those who are not so organised, which in this country means six out of 10 working people. We shall treat all employees as equals, and not give rights to one section and not to another.
  We fear that the sort of industrial democracy written into the Bill is partial. Indeed, we are concerned that the Government have already begged the question of worker-directors in the terms of reference for the new committee which is to be set up. The terms of reference contain the phrase "recognising the need for worker-directors on the boards of companies", or words to that effect. It is interesting to contrast that with what the Trades Union Congress said in 1974, when it had a composite motion before it, promoted particularly by the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, to the effect that it rejected the concept of supervisory boards mandatorily imposed.
  Further, we have noted that the shop stewards of British Leyland, under a scheme which we all wish to see succeed if the future of the company is to be as prosperous as it must be, have demanded that their representatives on the plant committees shall be nominated and not elected. That is an interesting denial of industrial democracy.
  I know that the hon. Member for Walton will not mind being used again as a witness in his absence. We heard him say, in our earlier proceedings, that Socialism was public ownership plus worker control.
  For all these reasons, we are suspicious of a term which we should all embrace but which has begun to take a shape that we do not like. If the NEB must come into being, we welcome the fact that it will concern itself with the promotion of good industrial relations and the greater involvement of those who work in its undertakings. That is a function only of good management. But we do not like what we see of the Socialist model for industrial democracy. We think that their Lordships' emphasis on the rôle that all employees should play is right. Therefore, I ask my hon. Friends to agree with

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  their Lordships on the amendment, and vote accordingly.
  8.30 p.m.
  Mr. Thorne: I was motivated to take part in this debate after having considered the 199 Lords amendments and the tardy character of some of them. I was particularly struck, however, by Lords Amendment No. 13 as being a meaningless set of words. It talks of good industrial relations. Some time before I came to this place I was invited by the Dunlop Rubber Company to talk to its managers about good industrial relations. They were interested in the human relations approach. I spoke for a couple of hours and answered various questions, and one gentleman put the whole thing in a nutshell when he said "What you are advocating is a threat to management's right to manage". That is the issue in which we are now involved.
  We should explain what is involved in this issue, and that is why we are talking about industrial democracy while the House of Lords and some Conservative Members talk merely about good industrial relations without in any shape or form attempting to define what that means.
  There has been a plethora of books in recent years about good industrial relations from people at all points in the political spectrum from Macarthy to Fox, to Flanders to Argyris and Herzberg and others, all addressing themselves to the problem of good industrial relations and coming to one inevitable conclusion, which is that there is some correlation between good industrial relations and workers participating in decision-making within their organisations. I am concerned particularly with that aspect.
  Herzberg talks about a healthy work situation and has certain ideas about how to create it. Why are people increasingly addressing themselves to the question of an unhealthy work situation, to bad industrial relations? It is precisely because we have learned very little since the time of the Hawthorne experiments in terms of what motivates workers in the work situation to accept the goals of the organisation they are involved in. This has got to be linked with the whole question of alienation within industrial society. Workers who experience a sense of powerlessness, meaningless isolation and self-
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  estrangement within the work situation are alienated. In many industries the assembly line worker responds to the speed of the machine. Charlie Chaplin made a good film about that. The alienated worker is the person we are concerned with when we talk of establishing good industrial relations.
  There still are managements who believe that providing the worker with a morning cup of tea, establishing a social club, and a welfare system within the personnel department, putting curtains in the factory windows and so on, will create an atmosphere of loyalty within the firm and to the firm's goals. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is why the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Butler) was completely wrong when he spoke about the Government imposing industrial democracy. I criticise the Labour movement for failing over 30 or 40 years to introduce real industrial democracy at shop-floor level. Governments of both major political parties have prevented the sort of developments which should have taken place over many years. I am happy that we now have a Government who are beginning to commence to start introducing industrial democracy, and I am sure that when we have it it will be given some meaning by the workers involved.
  I realise that the academics will not go the whole hog in spelling out what industrial democracy means when they talk about human relations or, to use their Lordships' term, good relations. What is the logic of the argument they have put in their literature? We are going to have to establish completely new structures in industrial undertakings. If a locality wants to do something about planning its environment—and there is evidence that this is happening—it will not want to exclude from its thinking the industrial undertaking in which its people work. That undertaking is part of the community. Unhappily, because of the nature of their working conditions, all too often people only begin to live after they have slammed the door of the factory and approach nearer and nearer to their homes. The community concept of establishing a participatory democracy, including the industrial undertaking, requires an undertaking which should be publicly-owned within that community.
  In that situation the workers at all levels—blue collar, white collar, middle

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  management and so on—will be participating in decisions. It will not merely be about the colour of the curtains or whether the midday break should be at one o'clock or 1.30, but about what products should be made within the undertaking and what marketing policies should be pursued. The workers will be considering in what way people's needs can be met in local community terms and in national community terms.
  There are those who say that workers are not qualified to be involved in this sort of thing. I remind hon. Members that on the Clyde there was a situation not very long ago in which the workers took over and for a considerable period, before Marathon came in, ran an enterprise. There was co-operation between white collar, blue collar, technical and shop floor workers, and together they ran an enterprise for a considerable period.
  I believe that together with the white collar workers in ASTMS and in various other organisations, we can create the means adequately to run the industry that we hope will soon be in public hands.
  Mr. Tom King: The hon. Member has referred to Marathon. Does he believe that those who work in Marathon should enjoy the benefits of State ownership or not? Does he know that his Government gave a pledge to an American company through a trade union leader that the company would not be nationalised?
  Mr. Thorne: I do not feel committed to what any previous Government did in giving an undertaking to a capitalist-owned enterprise. I am committed to what is laid down in the Labour Party membership card which I have in my pocket. That card refers to the public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and as far as I am concerned I am in business for that.
  Mr. King: The undertaking was given by Mr. Danny McGarvey on the assurance of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn). Does the hon. Member support that?
  Mr. Thorne: Here again I am, unhappily, not my brother's keeper. What Danny McGarvey says is a matter for Danny McGarvey, just as what the hon.
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  Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) says is a matter for the hon. Member.
  The whole development of British industry, following our previous debate, depends on the Government's willingness to maximise the extent of Government control in industry, coupled with consultation with the whole of organised labour in determining the sort of planning agreements that will present us with the goods that people need.
  If we are to achieve that sort of situation, it seems to me to be logical and inevitable that within all industrial undertakings we shall have to ensure that workers from shop floor level right up to the hierarchy—an unfortunate word in some respects—of the organisation participate in the decisions made by those undertakings.
  Mr. Richard Wainwright: I am happy to follow the hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne), to whom the House listened with great attention, because he was right to point out forcibly to his own Government that industrial democracy would be something new to British industry and would require new structures. If the Government want positive support for retaining the clause, they will have to give us a much clearer definition of the principles which they consider are covered by the term "industrial democracy".
  The word "democracy" is used sometimes as a convenient cover for proceedings which people in this country would regard as highly undemocratic. We know of "people's democracies" and allegedly "democratic" republics which are no more than tyrannies. We have had some helpful messages from Labour Members below the Gangway, but we have heard nothing from the Government, tonight or in Committee, about what the phrase means.
  Mr. Lee: The hon. Member may be right to chide the Government for the imprecision of the term, but would he not agree that it is certainly nearer precision than the banal observation which refers to the involvement of employees in the affairs of companies?
  Mr. Wainwright: I do not need the hon. Member to keep me miles away from that vapid wording, which I have

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  no intention of supporting, but if the Government want positive support for the clause they must explain themselves.
  Since we are dealing with a proposed State corporation, the Government must tell us whether they recognise that the worst enemy of democracy, particularly in industry, is bureaucracy, that the best way to kill off this infant concept of industrial democracy would be to enshrine it in a labyrinth of meetings so tedious that only those who dare not face their wives would stay and where the chances of action or decision before 11 o'clock at night were so remote that only those with no other home would stay until resolutions were taken. We need some assurance that this concept will not be smothered in bureaucracy from the very start.
  Even more important, however, and at the risk of stating the obvious, I ask for assurances on three points. First, it is a commonplace that one of the essential elements of democracy, without which the term is a mockery, is one person, one vote. No one is entitled to know whether that person has duly joined some qualifying organisation. When on polling day, with somewhat trembling emotions perhaps in cases like mine, we watch the voters going to the polls, we may know, as people who pride ourselves on being politicians, that some are voting from the most eccentric motives. But it is not our job, nor is it proper, to ask whether they are qualified to vote as long as their names are on the democratic register. Will the Government come clean and tell us whether by "industrial democracy" they mean literally one employee, one vote?
  Second, although democracy naturally implies majority rule, it also in this country implies due care and consideration for the views of minorities. In view of some recent experiences of mob rule the country needs to be reassured about the meaning of the term.
  Third—this is of particular importance in industry organised in separate plants, very often owned by separate companies—it is accepted in this country at any rate that democracy must pay some attention to the constituency or the area which the decisions will affect. That is why we have a strong tradition of local as well as national democracy. People
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  would not regard it as democratic if a decision peculiar to one town or village were suddenly settled by wheeling in the votes of a vast population several hundred miles away to overwhelm the people who were locally concerned. That is important when considering industrial democracy because it must include a proper measure of local democracy in issues which concern a particular plant in a particular way.
  Here again we are entitled to know whether the Government accept that on the traditional British pattern or whether they have in mind giving allegedly democratic power to officials of national organisations to come in and wield a sledgehammer on local issues. The term does not explain itself. We are entitled to more precise definitions from the Government before we vote.
  8.45 p.m.
  Mr. Ron Thomas: Of the whole host of Lords amendments, the one we are presently discussing is very important. If we look beyond the amendment we find that the Lords want to delete every reference to relevant trade unions. If we take all the amendments together we see that it is clear that the Lords' intention was to destroy the Bill completely. Indeed, if the Bill were rewritten along the lines of these amendments there would be no trace left of the original measure.
  The hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Butler) referred to the involvement of people in democracy, and seemed to be linking that concept to the other House. What the Members of the other House know about democracy, I do not know. We have been told on many occasions that they elect themselves and that they have the full support of their constituents. That just about sums up the situation.
  In Lords Amendment No. 13 the Members of the other House are attempting to take out something of importance and to insert in its place
  "good industrial relations and the involvement of employes in the affairs of"
  the particular companies. My hon. Friend the Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne) made the point that
  "good industrial relations"
  means absolutely nothing. It is the kind of euphemism that we had during the introduction to the Industrial Relations Act. I am sure that every personnel

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  manager, if asked "Have you got good industrial relations in your firm?", would say "Of course we have", even if on the previous day he had issued 100 redundancy notices without involving the work force. What do the words "good industrial relations" mean?
  Turning to the involvement of employees in the affairs of a company, I make the point that of course they are involved, because they produce what goes out of the gates. When they are not involved and there is a strike, we soon know about it. They are involved because they are the producers. Therefore, the insertion of those words is also nonsense, but they are typical of the kind of managerial philosophy that we still have in Britain.
  The hon. Member for Bosworth spoke a good deal about "consult" and "consultation". There is nothing that is more of a joke in British industry than joint consultative committees. Those committees spend hours talking about the state of the canteen tea, the toilets and the parking facilities. And management is happy if those committees talk all day about those matters. If the shop stewards ask any pertinent questions, they are told "These matters are a managerial prerogative and nothing to do with you. That concerns an area where the management takes the decisions." No one doubts that we need radical changes.
  When we talk about industrial democracy, we are talking not about consultation or industrial relations in the accepted sense but about power and authority in industry. We are talking about who makes the decisions about capital invest-thousands will be made redundant, who makes the decisions about capital investment on research and development, who makes the decisions about the introduction of new machinery, new techniques and so on.
  A good deal was said in the previous debate about the comparison between private and publicly-owned industry. We have witnessed a number of attempts by workers feeling their way towards industrial democracy and worker control. We know that these experiments have as yet happened only in firms which were already bankrupt when they were taken over. Therefore, this part of the Bill,
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  which is concerned with the promotion of industrial democracy, is closely linked with the previous debate.
  If we are to continue to take into public ownership only those industries which go bankrupt and are necessary to prop up the rest of the private capitalist system, there will be considerable difficulties in promoting industrial democracy. In many cases, the representatives will be promoting only the redundancy of their fellow workers. This has been done in mining, the railways and the docks. This image of the trades unions in the public sector being able by all kinds of Machiavellian techniques, to prevent workers being sacked, is a nonsense. The labour forces in the publicly-owned industries have been cut dramatically. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) referred to mining, but the same applies to the railways and the docks.
  Unfortunately, in both the public and private sectors we have had a rapid increase in all kinds of "administrative policemen" to make sure that smaller numbers of people actually do the producing.
  I believe that only in the public sector can we experiment with industrial democracy. All kinds of ideas have been thrown up in terms of supervisory boards. I do not go along with the idea of supervisory boards. At the same time, I am sure that everyone on the Government side of the House will agree that industrial democracy cannot be imposed on any situation. It has to come from the ideas and experience of those who work in a particular firm or industry who are fed up with the consultative and the conciliation machinery, the avoidance of disputes procedures, and so on, and who want to get involved in decision-making, which is where the power is. That is linked to the need for information— the demand for opening the books and seeing what is going on. These two matters are linked. I hope that the promotion of industrial democracy will lead to a situation in which we try out genuine workers' control—not 50–50 control on supervisory boards, and so on, but experiments in which the workers make the important decisions which affect their lives.
  Finally, I should like to add my support to those of my hon. Friends who have already spoken about the Bill and

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  the way that it has been treated in the other House. I believe that it was the present Prime Minister who once said, "When the House of Lords agrees with us, it is superfluous. When it disagrees with us, it is obnoxious". How obnoxious must it become before we get rid of it? I should like nothing better than for the Queen to stand up on 19th November and to say to those Lords, "From tomorrow you are all redundant"—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. The hon. Gentleman must not bring the Sovereign's name into the debate.
  Mr. Anthony Fell: The more I have listened to speeches by hon. Gentlemen opposite the more convinced I have become that this certainly ought to have been a short debate—if there should have been a debate at all on this matter, which I doubt, because I do not believe that the Government should have tried to put the Bill back as they wanted it.
  Mr. Kaufman: Surely the hon. Gentleman understands that there need not have been a debate at all if the Lords had not sought to interfere with the clause.
  Mr. Fell: The hon. Gentleman is always quick to get to his feet. Perhaps he will hold his fire long enough for me to tell him what I am worried about. We had a highly intelligent speech from the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas), in which he raised certain queries in the minds of those of us who have had something to do with industry in the past. The hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne) also raised some points that made me wonder. I realise that neither of them has any Leftist pretentions, and therefore I would not suggest to them that the word "democracy" can ever be linked with tyrannies. It is a sad fact that the word is in the greatest danger of becoming a dirty word because it has been so degraded by people who act as tyrants in its name.
  However, what worried me most about the speech of the hon. Member for Preston, South was that he foresaw some kind of legislation dealing with industrial democracy in the new programme for next year. Let us hope it is not one of 84 Bills in the next Session.
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  The hon. Member for Bristol, Northwest talked about worker control, but is that what people are after? Is the Left wing of the Labour Party after worker control.
  Mr. Ron Thomas: I am.
  Mr. Fell: It is good to hear someone come out and say it.
  Mr. Cryer: Does the hon. Member know that Clause 4 of the Labour Party's constitution includes the words:
  "control by the most popular means of administration"?
  This has been an integral part of our constitution since 1918, and the hon. Member's feeble attempts to make divisions in the Labour Party are a total waste of time.
  Mr. Fell: I could not care less about what is an integral part of Labour Party constitution and what is not. The country is being run by a Government, who cannot base everything they do on something which has been an integral part of the Labour Party constitution for the past 50 years.
  Mr. Cryer: They should.
  Mr. Fell: If it is worker control that hon. Members opposite want, why not insert the words "worker control" instead off "industrial democracy"? If they insist on using the words "industrial democracy", may I add my plea to that of the hon. Member for Bristol, Northwest, who wants to know more about what is in the Goverment's mind?
  The Under-Secretary is always courteous. I do not wish my plea to go unheard. Will the hon. Gentleman say what are his plans? Industry is in a mess already without the Government making the situation worse. It is pathetic. Are the Government choosing that part of industry for which they hold no brief? Do they wish to see one section of industry destroyed so as to impose the trial of industrial democracy? If some of the points mentioned by the hon. Member for Preston, South are incorporated in the Bill, the result will be some extraordinary clauses. There will be new structures.
  Will the Minister say how a committee will make decisions on research and development? How can an industry be run by committees? That is nonsense, as is

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  recognised by everybody except Left-wing Members who wish to destroy private industry and establish State enterprises. That is not a new concept. The Under-Secretary smiles broadly, although what I say is true.
  Mr. Robert Hughes: What is a board of directors if it is not a committee?
  Mr. Fell: I may be ignorant about boards of directors. However, it is usually possible, when a small number of people are involved, to come to a decision, especially when one of them is recognised by the others as being the chairman, who will make the final decision if necessary [Interruption.] This is not a matter for laughter. However, I must be careful at this point or I shall leave the subject of the amendment. I do not wish to do that.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): If the hon. Member keeps to the subject under discussion, I shall give him all the protection that the Chair can offer.
  Mr. Fell: I am most grateful for your promise of protection, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that I shall not need to call upon your protection as I shall try not to be controversial.
  I presume that the Under-Secretary will reply at a later stage. If so, will he explain at least the bare bones of the policy of worker control which the Government have promised to introduce in 1976–77? This evening the Undersecretary promised that such legislation would be introduced in 1976–77. We would like to know the details. It is monstrous that the Minister should announce this as a firm plan without being able to tell us the details. If there is to be a plan for worker control of all nationalised industries, we should be told about it. Should the hon. Gentleman make such an announcement, there would be even less investment. That is why I hope he will refrain from telling us such a dreadful truth. We can do without his throwing a spanner in the works in raising the money which the Government are trying to beg or borrow to live on during the next few profligate months.
  Although I shall understand if the Minister does not want to be too frank about worker control, I hope he will tell
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  us what he has in mind when he says that we shall have legislation on industrial democracy in 1976–77. If the Minister wants to ask his Department what it all means, I shall be delighted to continue to speak on the amendment.
  The hon. Member for Bristol, Northwest said that he could not understand what their Lordships meant by
  "good industrial relations and the involvement of employers in the affairs of"
  particular companies. It is difficult to believe that as intelligent a Member of Parliament as the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West should not be able to understand those perfectly clear words. Left-wing Members want to put in place of those words "industrial democracy", and that is monstrous. Why not tell the truth and say what they really mean, which is "worker control"? Let us have the truth and not go on beating about the bush. Let the proper words be put in.
  Mr. Ron Thomas: If the hon. Gentleman will think back, he will remember that what I said was that the words in the Bill are:
  "promoting industrial democracy in undertakings which the Board control".
  In that promotion the Minister said that there would be experiments in many ways. We all agree that there are many ways in which experiments can be made to extend industrial democracy, perhaps through the tier-board system. I merely asked whether one experiment would be on worker control.
  Mr. Fell: That is nonsense. The nationalised industries are hard pressed and are having the greatest trouble in not making bigger losses every year. Yet the hon. Gentleman says that there should be all manner of experiments, not in private industry but in publicly-owned undertakings only. Have not the nationalised industries enough trouble trying to pay their way without having to cope with that proposal? I hope that the Minister will give us an explanation.
  Mr. Lee: The hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) is not in the least inhibited and will not resent being described as far to the right of the Conservative Party. He questioned the point in the spectrum occupied by two of my hon. Friends. We know where the hon.

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  Member stands, and he has a robust candour in his approach, but I do not propose to follow his speech.
  At Business Question Time tomorrow, if I am lucky enough to catch Mr. Speaker's eye, I intend to ask by how many extra hours the work of the House has been increased by the activities of the other place in the course of this Session. My hon. Friends have already referred to the constitutional impropriety with which matters of great importance and amendments of great substance have been railroaded into the Bill, as we experienced last week with the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Bill. It can be said that we cannot complain about this series of amendments being in the same category, because if those amendments were an offence to the conventions of the constitution these are merely a piece of time-wasting absurdity that has been introduced merely to waste the time of the House.
  There may well be—I have tabled an Early-Day Motion on this subject which does not go quite as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas) has asserted—a case for another Chamber having a last look at legislation and spending some time on textual correction. I cannot believe that amendments of this kind are a good example of that activity. However, what is most offensive is that at a time when we are considering ways of bringing democracy. In one form or another, to British industry, our attempts, albeit inadequate and not wholly defined, are being obstructed by another place which on no construction whatever could be regarded as being democratic.
  I am still waiting for an answer to the question I put to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment the other day about the Government's attitude if the other place reversed the decision of this House for a second time. I intended to put the question to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry just before he sat down after replying to the last debate. I want to know the answer now. What will the Government do if the other place does not accept our disagreement with its amendments? My hon. Friends and I are looking with growing impatience at the way in which the business of this House is being snarled up by the
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  activities of another place. If it is right that there should be a revising Chamber—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am afraid that the question of the existence of the other Chamber does not arise on the amendments before us.
  Mr. Lee: As I am a strict constitutionalist I shall defer to your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall comment about the other place at another time when it is in order for me to tell you exactly what I propose should be done with that organisation.
  It has been said of more than one concept that it is like an elephant: it may not be easy to define but it can be recognised when it wanders into the room. In spite of the fire and fury of the hon. Member for Yarmouth, most hon. Members would recognise the democracy applied to industry or to any other form of institution.
  My hon. Friends will accept that in some respects we are further away from a democratic administration of the internal affairs of industry than we were during the wartime years when joint production committees existed. It does not say much for management or for the initiative and lack of appropriate militancy on the part of certain trade unions that that situation should prevail. There are many honourable exceptions but it still happens that some companies will dismiss large numbers of persons and embark upon redundancy policies which will change the locality of industrial production on a large scale, as happened with GEC in Woolwich not so long ago. That can be done with not only no prior consultation but the minimum possible notice and information being given in advance of the events in question, yet we have hon. Members opposite cavilling at the idea of industrial democracy.
  9.15 p.m.
  We have to realise—it applies over a whole range of our activities—that we no longer live in a deferential society. Authority is questioned in a whole host of ways. Sometimes it takes a disagreeable form. Perhaps I can give an example from a problem which is rather remote from what we are discussing but I think I can keep it in order as an illustration of a kindred situation. It is the problem of

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  football hooliganism. I discussed it recently with a London magistrate and found that we both concluded that one cause of the mindless violence which manifests itself so often and so disturbingly is that whereas at one time football clubs seemed to be owned and participated in by their supporters, they have largely become financial organisations remote from the supporters, who feel that they are less and less involved.
  It cannot be said that in industry we are moving in a reverse direction from democracy, but we have not moved far towards it. If we are to live with large-scale organisations, be they public or private—I hope that they will become more and more public and that there will be no more of this muddle-headed talk about the mixed economy being a permanent concept instead of a narrow transitory stage from private to public enterprise—I cannot believe that anyone will solve our industrial relations until and unless power is diffused as widely as possible, until as many people are involved in decision-making as possible. Otherwise, we shall merely build up a head of steam of resentment in people who are not consulted, and we will then find ourselves still wondering why we are not performing industrially as well as we might. I hope that the House will reject these Lords amendments, which are pointless, banal, trivial and impertinent.
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I endorse almost everything said by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hands-worth (Mr. Lee). I cannot see why hon. Members are unable to interpret a concept of industrial democracy even if all the i's are not dotted and the t's are not crossed. Surely, in a political community, we understand the concept of political democracy, and, by analogy, in an industrial community we would also be able to interpret industrial democracy on the same basic premise that one person engaged in that community should have an equal voice with any other person.
  What is the alternative to the concept which has brought horror to some Conservatives—the concept of workers control? It is shareholders' control, often in the hands of shareholders who are only remotely connected with the concern and have little or no knowledge of the everyday life and the detail of that concern.
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  Surely it would be wiser from the shareholders' point of view if there were a greater degree of workers' control.
  The hon. Member for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne) referred to control within the community. What is the community? Is it the employees within a concern itself, or is it a broader community? Is it the community that takes in the immediate environment that is affected by the decisions taken in a factory, or is it the community in total—the whole of the State, the community which may be called upon to provide capital and which will certainly be called upon to frame the law that affects the concern?
  If we are to have a real involvement of employees the control must be as near to those employees as possible. If control is in the hands of the employees the practicalities may cause difficulties. There may be a need for the involvement of a group outside, either locally or on a State basis.
  To a large extent control is indivisible, in that it either resides in the hands of a group or it does not. That is a fundamental matter, which has not been thought out sufficiently deeply in developing the concept of industrial democracy. I regret to hear that the Industrial Democracy Bill will be before the House not in the next Session but in the Session after that. It is a Bill that attempts to deal with a vital matter. Until we have sorted out the issue of industrial democracy, many of the other questions facing industry will remain unanswered.
  If we can sort out the question of industrial democracy in a satisfactory manner we can open a new chapter in the history of industry within these islands. If we cannot get it right, the problems that we have suffered for decades will continue.
  The rôle of trade unions has been mentioned. I only wish that the trade unions had taken a greater initiative in getting employees to become involved as much as possible in the concept of worker control and industrial democracy. I hope that the unions will take a greater initiative in future.
  Reference has been made to decisions being taken by committees. Committees already exist in industry at all levels, but to whom are they answerable? Those who are demanding worker control and

  601
  industrial democracy would say that they should ultimately be answerable to those employed in a particular concern. That does not necessarily mean that managers must stop managing. There are day-today decisions which no one would expect committees to take. But at the end of the day to whom are the managers answerable? Are they answerable to the hierarchy, that goes through to the shareholders, or to a structure that corresponds much more closely with the political democracy that we have come to accept in other spheres of life?
  The sooner that something happens on this matter the better. I hope that the Government will hurry to cross the t's and dot the i's.
  Mr. Cryer: I did not intend to become involved in this debate, but I was horrified by the extraordinarily complacent attitude displayed by the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell).
  It is important that the House should reject the Lords amendments and support the Government. It seems extraordinary that a Member representing the Conservative Party could make the sort of assumptions that have been made by the hon Gentleman—namely, that British industry is booming, that we are in prosperous times and that we can discuss industrial democracy on the basis that industry is in a properous condition.
  Mr. Fell: The hon. Gentleman is very kind to give way. I only want to tell him that he has outlined precisely the reverse of what I said.
  Mr. Cryer: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making such a characteristic intervention. It seemed that the implication of his remarks was that industry did not need attention and did not need alteration. The only industry in that position is one that is properous. Of course, the hon. Gentleman said that industry is in terrible difficulties. Clearly an industry that is in terrible difficulties needs to be examined to see what has happened in the past and what can be done in the future.
  We need to develop industrial democracy because in most industries there is a fight between the owners of capital and the people who have only one asset to dispose of—namely, their labour. If we
  602
  are to develop industry, we must change that system.
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: Does that apply equally to a retail co-operative?
  Mr. Cryer: Of course not. I admit that there are defects in the retail cooperative trade, but retail and manufacturing co-operatives have provided us with a good example of what they can do. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the co-operative movement was founded and developed on lines which these provisions in the Bill are designed to improve and develop. It is not the first time that the Labour movement has worked to develop industry. The Rochdale experiment in 1848 arose because people were being cheated and robbed by the retail trade, and that led to the setting up of co-operative societies. Because people in industry feel that they are being deprived, the Labour movement has introduced this legislation. If the hon. Gentleman does not believe that working people in industry are often badly dealt with and made the subject of injustices, let him go out to the workers and talk to them.
  I recently attended a conference on health and safety at work and I received a signed statement from a working man who ostensibly had been sacked for some other reason but had been dismissed because he had brought in a factory inspector to his place of work to examine an asbestos insulator which was being sawn up and was spreading dust all over the place. That kind of thing can happen, and unless we are prepared to change the structure of society it will continue to happen. This legislation is designed to deal with such situations.
  Opposition Members have spoken of industrial democracy and also about worker control. Those phrases are synonymous. We are not talking about consultative committees where a few tame workers are brought in, told that they are decent chaps and assured that if they sit down with the gaffer they will be all right. That kind of attitude was prevalent in the past in the British steel industry. Eddie Griffiths was a worker director, and look where he got to. We are not talking about a panacea that is put forward as a charade.

  603
  One of the unfortunate factors about a continuing Labour administration is that we often seem to be acting Tories and putting through legislation that does not appear to change the society in which we live. People find that nothing fundamental happens and that their lives are very much the same. It is the task of a Labour Government to change people's lives, because many people's lives are drab and uneventful and need changing. If we can set about changing the nature of society, we shall start on the road to Socialism. The notion that industrial democracy is to be achieved by the setting up of committees and the drinking of cups of tea should be thrown out of the window. We are here not to prop up a capitalist society but to change it.
  It would be a wonderful improvement if the National Enterprise Board got cracking on the question of industrial democracy. We are told that this concept will not be introduced until the 1976–77 Session. It would be a refreshing change if the idea of industrial democracy were so implemented that the working people pressed the Government for the NEB experiments to be extended to their industry. That is what we want to see. If that were to happen, the cynical sneers of the hon. Member for Yarmouth would be turned against him.
  The popular concept of participation and control has been part of the Labour Party constitution since 1918, but we still have a long path to travel. Therefore, while we are in office we must use our power to ensure that we effect a fundamental change in society. It was not all that long ago that an important figure in the Labour movement, Sir Hartley Shawcross as he then was, said that there was no talent in the Labour movement to enable working people to be brought in to control industries even though on the whole it was desirable that that should happen.
  I do not think that even the Conservative Members who are present would oppose the notion of some sort of participation. They trot it out every now and again as some sort of recognition of a movement that is growing. But it has taken the Labour Party a number of years to reach the point of actually incorporating it into its legislation.
  604
  9.30 p.m.
  While we can talk in pleasant academic terms here, the test of sincerity and effectiveness will be with the people outside. We welcome this Bill and we reject the Lords amendments. The Government would be taking another gigantic step down the road towards industrial democracy if at the same time as rejecting the Lords amendments they rejected the Lords themselves. People outside find it difficult to understand that we debate the Lords amendments and still tolerate the existence of the Lords. We ought to say "O.K. We are going down the path of industrial democracy as a first stage." This is, of course, welcome. But let us democratise our own environment as well. Let us show the people in the factories that we mean what we say when we tell them what is best for them, and that we will travel down the road with them.
  Let us accept this fundamental Bill. Let us accept subsection (2)(d), retaining it in the knowledge that it means workers' control. It will take different forms in different circumstances, but basically it means that those who earn their livelihood by the use of their hands or of their brains are the people who will make the decisions. We shall find that when that comes about many more sensible decisions will be made.
  For instance, would the working people in Bristol have been so committed to the production of Concorde if they had had the opportunity of deciding about that development in the first place? Would they not instead have decided that something more socially useful, more desirable and probably more preferable should have been carried out? Those workers are committed to Concorde because they were not given any choice in the first place. If it is a question of the dole or jobs, they will chose jobs.
  If we get working people involved in decision-making, we might find more sensible decisions being made rather than the decision that was made on Concorde as a result of an Anglo-French treaty which did not have any provision for opting out and which was designed to bolster up the Common Market.
  Let us make sure that we go down the road of industrial democracy. Let us make sure that this is fully implemented and that the Government bear

  605
  in mind that in this sort of debate there is growing pressure from the rank and file of the Labour movement and from the Labour back benches that industrial democracy should be implemented in the factory—and along the corridor as well.
  Mr. Kaufman: With the leave of the House, I should like to reply. It was with some bemusement that I felt compelled to listen to the intemperate remarks about the other place that some of my hon. Friends found it necessary to make. My hon. Friends know of my own deep feelings about the House of Lords. It was hurtful for me to hear the sentiments to which they felt they had to give vent. I am interested to note that members of the SNP and Plaid Cymru should have so cheered my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer), who attacked the House of Lords for interfering with our decisions. There seems to be a certain inconsistency in their approach. It is one which we have noted before in the approach of these territorialist Members of Parliament.
  Mr. Wigley: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that he has his facts wrong so far as Plaid Cymru is concerned?
  Mr. Kaufman: If the hon. Gentleman undertook the act of abstaining—[Interruption]. All I can say is that I did not see him in my Lobby—the Lobby which was voting for the supremacy of the House of Commons over that of the House of Lords.
  I was somewhat distressed by the remarks that my hon. Friends felt impelled to make, taking into account that without the wisdom of the House of Lords in inserting this amendment we would not have had this excellent debate on industrial democracy. We should have been deprived of the admirable speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Preston, South (Mr. Thorne), Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas), Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee) and Keighley. It is excellent that we have those speeches on the record.
  Although a great deal of what my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley said seemed to me to be excellent sense, I was sorry that he felt that he had to reprove the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) for his intervention, because I think that listening to the hon. Gentleman is preferable to listening to most of
  606
  his hon. Friends. He talks friendly good sense, of an extremist nature, which far more reflects the views of those who elect him than the merchant banker, stockbroker stuff that we have to listen to here from the modern Young Conservatives, which I find utterly odious.
  Mr. Peter Bottomley rose—
  Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Gentleman has wandered in and out of the Chamber during the debate. I do not feel that I am called upon to give way to him, when I wish to deal with the serious point raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth. The hon. Member for Yarmouth asked what the Government were up to on the question of industrial democracy. I refer him to col. 245 of Hansard for 5th August. I know that he was in the House on that day, because he opposed a very good Ten-Minute Bill. It was on that occasion that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade announced the setting up of the independent committee of inquiry into industrial democracy in the private sector.
  Parallel with that inquiry—I hope that this assuages the hon. Gentleman's fears that we are looking only at the private sector—we are looking at the rôle of employees in decision-making within the nationalised industries. It is well recognised on the Government benches that nationalisation does not necessarily lead to socialisation. The nationalised industries—my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Mikardo), with his experience on the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, will know this better than practically any other hon. Member—are not a signal example of socialisation or industrial democracy. Therefore, parallel with the efforts that we shall make to induce some industrial democracy into the private sector, we wish the public sector to be improved in this way.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley need not be concerned that industrial democracy will have to wait for the legislation after the inquiry. As soon as the National Enterprise Board comes into being, which we hope will be very soon after the Royal Assent is given to the Bill, the concerns in which the Board is involved will be able to go ahead. In the case of British Leyland,

  607
  which will be a National Enterprise Board company, there has already been considerable action in that direction. The legislation to which I referred has to do with the private sector, consequent upon the work of the committee of inquiry.
  Mr. Michael Marshall: Will the Minister confirm that the announcement of the inquiry in another place on, I think, 5th August was greeted with considerable approval in all parts of that House? Does that not put the whole question of the Lords' attitude to industrial democracy into much better perspective than does much of the tosh from the Government benches tonight?
  Mr. Kaufman: I always take the other place as best seen in perspective. If the other place welcomes industrial democracy in private enterprise it is even more baffling that it should have sought to remove, as one of the objectives of the NEB, the achievement of industrial democracy in NEB concerns.
  Mr. Fell: The Under-Secretary used some such words as "introduce some industrial democracy" into private enterprise. We are getting into more of a muddle. Just what does he mean?
  Mr. Kaufman: We are here dealing—as the hon. Member will see if he studies the terms of reference which my hon. Friend announced last August—with means of representation on boards of directors. It is that aspect of industrial democracy, in particular, that the committee of inquiry will look into. Industrial democracy does not consist only of representation on boards of directors, just as it does not consist only of dealing with the tea and the toilets, to which my hon. Friends referred as being only the trimmings of industrial democracy and not industrial democracy itself.
  The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright) asked a question which I cannot answer in the way he would like. I cannot answer it, because he rightly said that industrial democracy should not be smothered in bureaucracy as it advances. I agree that that would be fatal. If we were to lay down a precise blueprint which we were seeking to impose, that would, from the beginning, establish a bureaucratic structure which would be
  608
  alien to an evolving democracy. The remarks by the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) are particularly germane here. He likened industrial democracy to political democracy. Political democracy in this country has been achieved over centuries of evolution. It is not something for which Simon de Montfort laid down a blueprint, to which we have been working ever since. We have been working towards political democracy through armed and political struggle, through struggle in the streets and through struggle in Parliament.
  We have only recently achieved full political democracy in this country. Only since the Second World War have we got rid of multiple franchises abolishing the university vote, for example. It was only a little earlier than that that we had full adult suffrage, with all women over 21, as it was then, having the vote. In the same way, industrial democracy—though I trust it will be achieved in a much shorter timescale—cannot be achieved on the basis of a blueprint which we should stamp on everything. We shall have to evolve towards it differently in different concerns and in different kinds of industry. The coal mining industry, for example, is very different from the steel industry, which, again, is very different from the motor car industry. The pattern for one is not necessarily the pattern for another.
  The hon. Member for Colne Valley said that industrial democracy must be local democracy. In some cases he is right. My hon. Friends who represent coal mining constituencies will know a good deal more than I do about this, but in the coal mining industry, where there is a national structure, it might be that an industrial structure relevant to each pithead would be better. These are the things we have to work towards.
  9.45 p.m.
  What we are seeking to achieve, through the different form of industrial democracy towards which we are trying to evolve, is the participation of workers in major decisions affecting the future of their companies. I cannot go into it in more detail. To attempt to do so in an effort to satisfy the hon. Member for Caernarvon would be to mislead him rather than satisfy him.
  Mr. Thorne: I hope we shall not push the boat of political democracy out too far. If we do, we stand to be shot at on two counts. We are involved in a set of amendments which arise from a Chamber which I consider to be completely undemocratic, in that its Members are not present on an elected basis. Secondly, I feel that we can no longer substantiate, if we ever could, the idea that proportional representation should not be accepted by this House.
  Mr. Kaufman: My hon. Friend has indicated two idiosyncratic views. Certainly I do not agree with his view about proportional representation. My hon. Friend is perfectly welcome to try it out, if he likes. We can experiment towards that somewhere other than in parliamentary representation.
  Mr. Wainwright: The Under-Secretary of State said that he could not give us, tonight, blueprints or details, but he will recall that in no way did I ask for any kind of blueprint or detail. I asked for reassurance on a very small number of principles. I must press him on the principle of "one person, one vote", without having to belong to some qualifying institution.
  Mr. Kaufman: May I say,obiter, that one of the other matters to which the hon. Member animadverted was mob rule—the antithesis of political democracy, or any kind of democracy at all. One could not envisage mob rule playing any part in industrial democracy.
  Concerning the hon. Member's other question, I think that he is jumping the gun in believing that voting is necessarily an integral part of industrial democracy. Industrial democracy which simply consists of a meeting at which people raise their hands is not necessarily a form of industrial democracy which would be appropriate for every concern. Voting is the method by which we make our decisions in this House. It is the way in which our constituents make their decisions about whether we shall come to this House. Voting in mass meetings is not necessarily the way in which industrial democracy will function from concern to concern.
  No system of industrial democracy in this country can be viable unless it is based upon the trade unions. Industrial
  610
  democracy which is localised to the works council, separated from the trade unions, is a form of syndicalism—a form of selfishness for each concern, in which each concern runs itself without consideration for fellow workers and other councils. People in trade unions have solidarity, and protection through their trade unions, and it would be impossible to envisage a system of industrial democracy to which organised trade unionism was not integral.
  Though I have answered the hon. Member's questions, I cannot say that I have answered them to his satisfaction—that is a different matter entirely—but I have sought to answer them honestly. If he is not satisfied with them, that is just too bad, but I did not wish to mislead him or any hon. Member as to the direction in which we are seeking to go. Certainly it is not the direction in which another place is seeking to drag us. I hope, therefore, that the House will agree to disagree with the Lords amendment.
  Mr. Adam Butler: I suspect that there is some agreement on this matter, although it may not have been clear from some of the exchanges. The Undersecretary has paid me the compliment of making no attacks on the speech that I have made as the official Opposition spokesman on this matter. However, nothing has been said to allay our fears about what the Government mean by industrial democracy. Indeed, much has been said to increase our concern, not least by the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) and others below the Gangway. My hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) said that if by industrial democracy the Government mean workers' control, they should say so. This again is what hon. Members below the Gangway have cried for.
  We recognise the rights both of employees and of shareholders. The arguments hinges—this is what the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright), who voted in Committee to expunge the phrase, was trying to get from the Minister, though whether he succeeded remains to be seen—on what "democracy" means in this sense. The Minister has suggested that the ballot or voting may not come into the question. We regret that in everying said and written by Labour Members it appears that in order to have the legal right to qualify for participation in decision

  611
  making and all the other things that many of us would like to see, it will be necessary to belong to a union.
  That was apparent in the Minister's reply to my question. Labour Members want everyone to belong to a union, and the implication of everything they say and write is that those who are not in a union will not qualify for that legal
  right. If that is their interpretation of industrial democracy, we must hold to our decision to uphold the Lords in their amendment.
  Question put, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment:—
  The House divided: Ayes 278. Noes 243.

  Division No. 353.]

  AYES

  [9.52 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Lamborn, Harry

  Allaun, Frank

  Eadie, Alex

  Lamond, James

  Anderson, Donald

  Edelman, Maurice

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Archer, Peter

  Edge, Geoff

  Lee, John

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Ashley, Jack

  English, Michael

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Ennals, David

  Lipton, Marcus

  Atkinson, Norman

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  Litterick, Tom

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Bates, Alf

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Luard, Evan

  Bean, R. E.

  Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Mabon, Or J. Dickson

  Bishop, E. S.

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

  McCartney, Hugh

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Flannery, Martin

  McElhone, Frank

  Boardman, H.

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  Booth, Albert

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Ford, Ben

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

  Forrester, John

  Mackintosh John P.

  Boyden, James (Bish Auck)

  Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

  Maclennan Robert

  Bradley, Tom

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Freeson, Reginald

  McNamara, Kevin

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Madden, Max

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  George, Bruce

  Magee, Bryan

  Buchanan, Richard

  Gilbert, Dr John

  Mahon, Simon

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Ginsburg, David

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.

  Campbell, Ian

  Gould, Bryan

  Marks, Kenneth

  Canavan, Dennis

  Gourlay, Harry

  Marquand, David

  Cant, R. B.

  Graham, Ted

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Carmichael, Neil

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Carson, John

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Carter, Ray

  Grocott, Bruce

  Meacher, Michael

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Cartwright, John

  Harper, Joseph

  Mikardo, Ian

  Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Millan, Bruce

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Hart, Rt Hon Judith

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Hatton, Frank

  Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

  Cohen, Stanley

  Hayman, Mrs Helene

  Molloy, William

  Coleman, Donald

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Moonman, Eric

  Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

  Henderson, Douglas

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Concannon, J. D.

  Horam, John

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Moyle, Roland

  Corbett, Robin

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Newens, Stanley

  Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Noble, Mike

  Crawford, Douglas

  Hunter, Adam

  Oakes, Gordon

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

  Ogden, Eric

  Cronin, John

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian

  Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Cryer, Bob

  Janner, Greville

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Ovenden, John

  Davidson, Arthur

  Jeger, Mrs Lena

  Owen, Dr David

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Padley, Walter

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

  John, Brynmor

  Park, George

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Parker, John

  Deakins, Eric

  Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

  Parry, Robert

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Delargy, Hugh

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Pendry, Tom

  Dempsey, James

  Judd, Frank

  Perry, Ernest

  Doig, Peter

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Phipps, Dr Colin

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Kelley, Richard

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Dunn, James A.

  Kinnock, Neil

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Dunnett, Jack

  Lambie, David

  Radice, Giles

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Snape, Peter

  Watkins, David

  Reid, George

  Spearing, Nigel

  Watkinson, John

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Watt, Hamish

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Stallard, A. W.

  Weetch, Ken

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Stoddart, David

  Weitzman, David

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Stott, Roger

  Wellbeloved, James

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Strang, Gavin

  Welsh, Andrew

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  White, James (Pollok)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Swain, Thomas

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Rose, Paul B.

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Whitlock, William

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Rowlands, Ted

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Sandelson, Neville

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Thompson, George

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

  Selby, Harry

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

  Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

  Tierney, Sydney

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

  Tomlinson, John

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)

  Tomney, Frank

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Torney, Tom

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Tuck, Raphael

  Woof, Robert

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Sillars, James

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Silverman, Julius

  Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES

  Small, William

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Mr. J. D. Dormand and

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Ward, Michael

  Miss Margaret Jackson

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  James, David

  Alison, Michael

  Elliott, Sir William

  Jessel, Toby

  Arnold, Tom

  Emery, Peter

  Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

  Awdry, Daniel

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Jopling, Michael

  Baker, Kenneth

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Banks, Robert

  Farr, John

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Beith, A. J.

  Fell, Anthony

  Kilfedder, James

  Bell, Ronald

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Kimball, Marcus

  Biffen, John

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Blaker, Peter

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Body, Richard

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Fox, Marcus

  Knox, David

  Bottomley, Peter

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Lamont, Norman

  Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

  Fry, Peter

  Lane, David

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Bradford, Rev Robert

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Latham, Michael (Melton)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Brittan, Leon

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

  Lawson, Nigel

  Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Brotherton, Michael

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Godbar, Rl Hon Joseph

  Loveridge, John

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Goodhart, Phillp

  Luce, Richard

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Goodhew, Victor

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Buck, Antony

  Goodlad, Alastair

  McCrindle, Robert

  Budgen, Nick

  Gorst, John

  Macfarlane, Nell

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  MacGregor, John

  Burden, F. A.

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

  Carlisle, Mark

  Gray, Hamish

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Carr, Rt Hon Robert

  Grieve, Percy

  Madel, David

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Grimond, Rt Hon J

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Churchill, W. S.

  Grist, Ian

  Marten, Neil

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Hall, Sir John

  Mates, Michael

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Mather, Carol

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Maude, Angus

  Cockcroft, John

  Hannam, John

  Mawby, Ray

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Cope, John

  Hastings, Stephen

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Cordle, John H.

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Cormack, Patrick

  Hawkins, Paul

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Critchley, Julian

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Mills, Peter

  Crouch, David

  Heseltine, Michael

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Crowder, F. P.

  Hicks, Robert

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

  Hordern, Peter

  Moate, Roger

  Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Molyneaux, James

  Dodsworth, Geoffrey

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

  Moore, John (Croydon C)

  Drayson, Burnaby

  Hunt, John

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Hurd, Douglas

  Morgan, Geraint

  Dunlop, John

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

  Durant, Tony

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

  Mudd, David

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Neave, Airey

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Nelson, Anthony

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Thomas, Rt. Hon P. (Hendon S)

  Neubert, Michael

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Townsend, Cyril D.

  Newton, Tony

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Trotter, Neville

  Nott, John

  Scott, Nicholas

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Onslow, Cranley

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Shepherd, Colin

  Viggers, Peter

  Pardoe, John

  Shersby, Michael

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Silvester, Fred

  Wakeham, John

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Sims, Roger

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Penhaligon, David

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

  Percival, Ian

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Wall, Patrick

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Walters, Dennis

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Speed, Keith

  Wells, John

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Sproat, Iain

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Raison, Timothy

  Stainton, Keith

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Rathbone, Tim

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Wood, Rt Hon Richard

  Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

  Young, Sir G. (Eating, Acton)

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Younger, Hon George

  Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

  Stokes, John

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Tapsell, Peter

  Mr. Anthony Berry and

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

  Mr. Michael Roberts

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendment disagreed to.

Clause 3

  EXERCISE BY BOARD OF POWERS TO GIVE SELECTIVE FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE UNDER INDUSTRY ACT 1972.
  Lords Amendment: No. 15, in page 4, line 3, leave out from beginning to "nothing" in line 5.
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this amendment we are to discuss Lords Amendments Nos. 21, 22 and 174.
  Mr. Kaufman: These are straightforward tidying-up amendments tabled by the Government in another place.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 16, in page 4, line 30, at end insert "and incidental to".
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  This is a purely technical drafting amendment.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendment agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 18, after Clause 3, insert the following new Clause "A"—
  Overseas aid
  ". The Board may, with the consent of the Secretary of State, enter into and carry out agreements with the Minister of Overseas Development under which the Board act, at the expense of that Minister, as the instrument by means of which technical assistance is furnished by the Minister in exercise of the power conferred by section 1(1) of the Overseas Aid Act 1966; and the Board may, with the consent of both the Secretary of State and the said Minister, enter into and carry out agreements under which the Board, for any purpose specified in the said section 1(1), furnish technical assistance in a country or territory outside the United Kingdom against reimbursement to them of the cost of furnishing that assistance."
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I call the attention of the House to the fact that privilege is involved in this amendment.
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  The purpose of this amendment, which was tabled by the Government in another place, is to ensure that the NEB has the power to make the skills and experience which it will develop available to Governments and other authorities and bodies in developing countries if invited to do so.
  Mrs. Hart: I am sure you will tell me if I commit some error, Mr. Deputy

  617
  Speaker, in view of your explanation that privilege is involved in this amendment. I am not quite sure in what way privilege is involved.
  Events carry on after one's own departure, and at the Ministry of Overseas Development I was greatly involved in the inclusion of this amendment in the Bill. I would like to explain its importance and relevance. Many developing countries have arrived at the view that it is necessary for them to control and own their natural resources, and this is very much involved in the new international economic order between industrialised and Third World countries which is being discussed so much now. I have been greatly impressed, over the past 18 months, with the technical co-operation between the public sectors of developing and developed countries.
  I should also like to see investment co-operation, but this is not incorporated in the amendment. Every basic area of concern to developing nations, whether in energy or transport, matches up to the areas of concern in industrialised nations' public sectors. Developing countries which may, for understandable reasons, be reluctant to engage in the involvement of further private investment in their countries, have no theological or ideological problems in terms of the involvement of public sectors of industrialised countries. [Interruption.] I hope that I shall not be challenged on this issue. If I am challenged, I shall reply.
  Many of the acts of incorporation of the existing nationalised industries, which were enacted between 1945 and 1950, do not provide the powers for a public sector industry in Britain to engage in overseas activities. The British Steel Corporation may do so. That is an exceptional case. Most of the others are specifically prohibited from doing so by Acts of incorporation. I should like to see—I hope that we shall see it before too long—an amendment to all the nationalised industries' legislation giving all nationalised industries the power to do that.
  It is important that in creating the new body—the National Enterprise Board—we should not continue the effective prohibition against its engaging in operations which can be of direct technical assistance to the developing countries, through
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  technical assistance financed by the Ministry of Overseas Development from the aid budget. Therefore, I welcome the amendment, which removes the possibility of the NEB, in any of its activities, being precluded from providing the technical know-how, the co-operation and the assistance which is proper and relevant within the overseas aid programme.
  This is a necessary amendment. I trust that the House will support it.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady raised the question of privilege. This matter involves a charge. It is not covered by a Money Resolution. Therefore, it is an invasion of the House of Commons privileges. However, if the House passes the amendment it means that we are waiving our privileges. The reason why attention is drawn to this matter is the defence of the privileges of the House, as their Lordships' amendment cannot be accepted unless we agree to waive our privileges.
  Mr. Tom King: The Opposition have no wish to obstruct this clause. In Committee we established that the NEB is a person in the legal sense. It is not a company. I am not clear in what way the NEB will be of assistance to the Ministry of Overseas Development, although I can see how the companies owned by the NEB may render assistance. I realise that if a request is received, one of the companies may give technical assistance. However, I am not aware that in this sense the NEB will have any central technical staff, or technical advisory staff, although such staff may be employed by the companies. I am not aware of any prohibition on companies co-operating with the Ministry if requested to help with a technical development, although such companies may be owned by the NEB.
  I find difficulty in understanding why the clause is necessary.
  Mr. Kaufman: May I say how much everybody will have welcomed hearing my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart), not only because of her distinguished services as Minister for Overseas Development but also because of the crucial part she played in formulating the policy which led to this Bill. It was therefore appropriate that we should have the benefit of hearing from her on this matter.

  619
  The clause is meant to cover two situations. The first is where the National Enterprise Board and the Minister for Overseas Development enter into an agreement for technical assistance to be provided as part of the British official overseas aid programme, in which case the consent of the Secretary of State is required before the agreement is concluded. The cost would then be met out of the overall amount available for the programme.
  The second provision allows a direct agreement between the NEB and the Government of the developing country or with some other appropriate body,
  620
  including an international organisation, which would not form part of the official aid programme but for which the NEB would be reimbursed directly by the Government or organisation assisted.
  In these cases the consent of both the Secretary of State and the Minister for Overseas Development would be required. I hope that this explains why the clause is necessary.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Mr. Speaker: By agreeing to the amendment, the House has shown its willingness to waive its privilege. I shall see that an entry is made in the Journal to that effect.

Clause 4

  TRANSFER OF PUBLICLY OWNED PROPERY TO BOARD
  Lords Amendment: No. 19, in page 5, line 41, leave out from beginning to "shall" in line 1 on page 6 and insert—
  "(4) Subject to subsections (5) and (6) below, if—

  (a)the Secretary of State has given a consent under subsection (2) above; and

  (b)the consideration for the transfer has been determined; and

  (c) its amount exceeds £1 million, the Secretary of State".

  10.15 p.m.
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we are taking Lords Amendment No. 20.
  Mr. Kaufman: Hon. Members will recall that on Report in this House, following representations in Committee, the Government tabled an amendment providing for the details of the transfer of publicly-owned property worth more than £1 million to the Board to be reported to Parliament. This further amendment was subsequently put down in another place to cover an eventuality which had not been foreseen when the Bill was before this House.
  It is possible that some of the publicly-owned shareholdings will be transferred to the Board before the Government, after consultation with the Board, have determined the capital debt to be assumed by the Board as a result of the transfer. It is clearly desirable that the Board's expertise should be brought to bear on the Government shareholdings as soon as possible, but the valuation of shareholdings, particularly when they are not publicly quoted, can be a complicated and time-consuming business.
  With the Bill as it left the House the Secretary of State could have deferred his statement to Parliament until the consideration for the transfer had been determined. The Government feel that Parliament is entitled to know about the transaction without such delay, so the amendment provides for Parliament to be informed of everything other than the
  622
  consideration, and for the consideration to be reported later.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

Clause 8

  THE BOARD AND THE MEDIA
  Lords Amendment: No. 24, in page 8, line 31, leave out from "State" to end of line 37 and insert:
  "may direct that the Board or a subsidiary of the Board shall not be under any duty imposed by subsection (5) or (6) above during such time as the direction is in force."
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we are to take Lords Amendment No. 25.
  Mr. Kaufman: Amendment No. 25 is a straightforward Government drafting amendment.
  Amendment No. 24, which is a Government amendment, has two purposes. First, it makes the drafting of the rather complicated clause on the media a little more concise by avoiding repetition. The second objective of the amendment is to make it clearer—although it was already implicit in the clause as drafted—that directions given by the Secretary of State to allow the Board or its subsidiaries to retain media interests in certain circumstances are not intended to be permanent.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendment agreed to.

Clause 9

  OTHER LIMITS ON BOARD'S POWERS
  Lords Amendment No. 26, in page 9, line 11, at beginning insert:
  "Subject to subsection (1A) of this section".
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Speaker: With this we are taking the following Lords Amendments:
  No. 27, in page 9, line 13, after "or" insert:
  "in the circumstances described in subsection (1A) of this section".
  No. 28, in page 9, line 22, at end insert:
  "(1A) The circumstances referred to in subsection (1) of this section are that the Board has applied to the Secretary of State for a general authority for one of its subsidiaries to make a series of acquisitions of the share capital of specified bodies corporate, or bodies corporate of a specified class, some or all of which acquisitions would entitle the Board to exercise or control the exercise of 30 per cent. or more of the votes at any general meeting of the respective bodies corporate; provided that in the case of no such acquisition shall the value of the consideration exceed £250,000, nor would the total value in the series of acquisitions exceed £10,000,000."
  Mr. Kaufman: The Government cannot accept that it is right to limit the Secretary of State's power to give general authorities for the acquisition of shareholdings under Clause 9. The Government accepted on Report a point which had been discussed in Committee, namely, that the requirement for ministerial approval for acquisitions of shares costing more than £10 million or where more than 30 per cent. of the equity was involved, should be extended from acquisitions by the National Enterprise Board and its wholly-owned subsidiaries to include all the Board's subsidiaries. This widened the ambit of control in a way which brought in the business activities of companies with substantial outside shareholders. To avoid a pointless extension of Government oversight resulting from the automatic operation of these provisions, the Government simultaneously amended the Bill to provide that the Secretary of State should have the power to give general authorities.
  In making this second amendment the Government had primarily in mind the possibility that the wide operation of the 30 per cent. rule would involve the Secretary of State in approving relatively minor acquisitions, and in particular acquisitions by substantial companies in which the NEB was by no means the only shareholder.
  Such companies, and especially companies of the size of British Leyland, not infrequently make acquisitions and disposals in the normal course of business.
  624
  The bureaucracy involved in obtaining the Secretary of State's permission for all these acquisitions would cause needless delay and cost, and blunt the entrepreneurial outlook which the Government hope that the Board will be able to generate. It is for this reason that the Government introduced the power to give general authorities to cover particular categories of acquisitions and avoid the need for each acquisition to be vetted individually.
  Categories which might reasonably qualify for consideration for general authorities include minor acquisitions of less than certain value, acquisitions of private companies which have been negotiated by agreement with the existing owners where some higher limit would probably be right, acquisitions of sales outlets and other necessary facilities overseas, and acquisitions in pursuance of the Board's reorganisation function where the Government have already agreed to fairly specific proposals relating to reorganisation in a particular sector.
  The House will recognise that the amendments we are discussing cover only some of these circumstances in which the use of a general authority might be desirable from everybody's point of view. There are also other circumstances in which a general authority might reasonably be exercised. For example, it might be ready to consider a case for a general authority for a single company rather than a category of companies. This could arise where the outside holding was high and where we were persuaded that detailed Government control of each acquisition might adversely affect the interests of the private shareholders.
  I am also mindful that the Bill requires the Board to seek the Secretary of State's approval if the value of the consideration for any acquisition together with the value of any consideration paid for share capital previously acquired will exceed £10 million. This means that the Board has to come to the Secretary of State for every further purchase of shares in one company once the £10 million mark has been reached, however small.
  We should want to avoid such bureaucracy by the general consent arrangements. The fact is that, unless we build an elaborate legislative edifice, it is impossible to cover every eventuality.

  625
  It is against this background that I ask the House to consider these amendments. I hope that I have made clear the many ways in which the power of the Secretary of State to issue a general authority may be used to avoid bureaucracy and unnecessary limitation of the freedom of the NEB and its subsidiaries to behave commercially. I have also made clear that even without a power to grant general authorities the Secretary of State is given unfettered discretion by this clause.
  The question at issue is whether in exercising this discretion the Secretary of State should be obliged to follow unnecessary administrative formalities and in his turn oblige the Board and its subsidiaries to do the same.
  Mr. Michael Marshall: I listened with care to what the Under-Secretary said, because the outline he gave is important as we are at last beginning to get down to some of the detailed work which many of us hoped we could do tonight. There is no doubt that many parts of the Bill left the Committee stage and this House in an ill-formed and ill-digested state.
  I shall put into perspective the clauses that we are discussing. The Under-Secretary believes that the House of Lords should be looked at in perspective. If that is so he should pay tribute to much of the work that has been done in another place in trying to sort out many of the problems that those hon. Members who served on the Committee know were left over.
  In this set of amendments this is clearly illustrated. I do not in any way dissent from the way in which the Under-Secretary outlined the progression of the Government's amendments, but I could not help feeling that he was somewhat bland, even by his own bland standards, in the way he read somewhat quickly over the more difficult passages.
  I should like to highlight one or two of the problems that remain to be dealt with by this House. First, it is worth recalling that the origin of this part of the Bill stems from the original White Paper, "The Regeneration of British Industry". It stems specifically from the undertaking that parliamentary control should be exercised on the lines of Section 8 of the Industry Act 1972. Hon. Members will recall that that Act provided for single
  626
  acquisition which had a £5 million limit. Subsequently the Government felt that they had to depart from that figure and it was increased to £10 million. In addition, we moved some way from the notion of parliamentary control because there was the correspondence which my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) had with the Prime Minister, which sought further clarification. It became obvious as we looked more closely at this part of the Bill that if we opened up the whole acquisition area and spoke about limits and general consents, we would move into an area which was difficult to define but essential to have clarified.
  The Prime Minister told my hon. Friend that the matter would be clarified in Committee and that, in effect, all would be made plain. I regret to say that, like a number of other assurances by the Prime Minister, this one was not put into practice. Right throughout the proceedings on this Bill, both here and in another place, we have had all these uncertainties about how we are to draw the line in this area.
  The other place has been more active in this matter in recent weeks than we have, and this difficulty was accepted by both sides, including the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, who took a number of opinions and opportunities to try to get a further rationalisation of many of the doubts we had expressed in Committee. This is why I said that die Undersecretary of State has simply fallen back on stonewalling tactics in suggesting that this area is too complex to give us any further opportunities to legislate.
  The problem really has three parts. The first is, of course, that if we reject this Lords amendment it is plain that the Secretary of State will be able to disregard the requirement for his consent to be given whenever the Board or one of its subsidiaries proposes to acquire a controlling interest, no matter what that acquisition may cost. It is argued that such a power is unlikely to be invoked, but that is not a point which we as law makers can simply take as read.
  There will inevitably be cases where the Secretary of State gives a general authority, and we are now expected to hand a blank cheque to the National Enterprise Board or its subsidiaries to operate within

  627
  that general authority within the terms of £250,000 for individual acquisitions or the £10 million ceiling.
  This brings me to my second major concern. What would "general authority" mean in practice? Lord Beswick properly highlighted this problem in the other place when he described, for example, acquisitions such as those which might apply to British Leyland or Rolls-Royce, since such companies are of the kind for which retail outlets would need to be acquired and perhaps overseas selling agencies set up. The Under-Secretary of State was helpful in giving some examples just now. He mentioned minor acquisitions and acquisitions of private companies by agreement. He admitted that his list covered only some of the circumstances. It seems to me, therefore, that his list is open ended.
  The Government accepted this dilemma as recently as 5th August in another place when, on Report, Lord Beswick said:
  "I must confess that I think it wrong if this can be construed as meaning that a company may by general authority invest £10 million in each of a number of different sales outlets. I will look at that aspect again."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5th August 1975; Vol. 363, c. 1570.]
  That was a clear statement. It led the other place to consider the matter again on 16th October, in a way which I shall describe.
  The third basic problem which still applies is that the Government were unable to give any adequate assurance to another place that they had overcome precisely the difficulty which Lord Beswick himself had underlined on Report. The only assurance which Lord Beswick was able to give on 16th October, which is crucial to the way we should regard the Government's attitude towards the future of the Bill and the way we should expect the NEB to operate, was:
  "It is necessary to recognise that the proper operation of legislation depends upon observance by the Government and the National Enterprise Board of the spirit of the legislative provisions as interpreted by the government and Parliament, and subject to the sanction of the ability of Parliament to call the responsible Minister to account for the discharge of his responsibility"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16th October 1975; Vol. 364, c. 1030.]
  That was the only specific undertaking which the Government were able to give on 16th October. I fear that what we
  628
  have heard tonight does not take us much further forward. What is disappointing about the Minister's case is that he has not been able to show a little willingness.
  10.30 p.m.
  What is it that the amendments seek to do? They specifically invite the House to specify whether we think we can come up with a better set of numbers. The amendment refers to £250,000 for individual acquisitions and a £10 million ceiling. It was accepted by the Conservative spokesman that they were figures which should be matters for discussion and perhaps for amendment. Apparently the Government have not felt able to consider this argument or to get down to the detailed figures. We are told that the matter becomes too complex if we try to legislate. Surely there must have been consultations with Lord Ryder and the NEB.
  I hope that the Minister will feel able to tell us a little more along the lines I have suggested. We are being asked to take a great deal on trust in the way in which this general consent can apply in practice. If the Government feel, even at this stage, that they have something to say about the figures I have quoted I hope that they will do so. If they have nothing to say, the whole approach which we have seen to these amendments illustrate once more only what many of us feared all the way through the earlier proceedings—namely, that much of the Bill is ill-digested and ill thought through.
  The nub of the argument was put extremely well in another place by Lord Drumalbyn. On 16th October he said:
  "It does not make sense to stipulate the circumstances…".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 16th October 1975; Vol. 364, c 1028.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The rule is that the hon. Gentleman can only quote a Minister. If it is not a Minister the hon. Gentleman can paraphrase, but not quote. Quotations must be confined to the words of Ministers.
  Mr. Marshall: Lord Drumalbyn said that it did not make sense to stipulate the circumstances under which the Board had to obtain the Secretary of State's permission and then in the same breath to say that that requirement could be waived under any circumstances without further recourse to the House. That

  629
  seems to be a valid and fair worry which may well be felt on both sides of the House. It is not a matter which we have been able to disentangle.
  I am willing at this stage to withhold further judgment in the light of what the Minister may wish to say on reconsidering the matter. I cannot help concluding without pointing out once more that we have a set of amendments from another place which clearly represent an attempt to tidy up a complex and difficult area. It is right that we should put on the record that some of us appreciate the work which was done on both sides in another place.
  Mr. Stainton: On the whole, I think that the amendment has much to commend it. It will lead to a great deal more smoothness in the operation of the Board. Having sat through the Committee proceedings I appreciate that it may sound naive to ask the question, but what is the procedure in reverse? What about divesting? We are here preoccupied with acquisition, but will the Minister make the position clear on divesting? Organisations such as British Leylands trade in subsidiaries of this nature on a day-to-day basis—I think those were the very words the Minister used. That must involve disposal as well as acquisition. The emphasis is put on acquiring but perhaps the Minister will explain what happens on disposal.
  Mr. Hal Miller: When the Minister replies to the debate perhaps he will be kind enough to be a little clearer about the categories of companies which might be acquired as subsidiaries within the ambit of this general consent. Yesterday during Question Time I raised the position of a component maker in my constituency who fears that he will be bought up by British Leyland with money provided by the public. I was not given a very clear answer. I was listening carefully to the categories enumerated by the Minister. He did not mention such suppliers but on the other hand he did not exclude them. I should be grateful to know whether it is the Government's intention that under the Bill there will be some guidelines such as we were discussing earlier or whether it is to be done in some other way. The Minister owes the House a rather more explicit explanation than we have so
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  far had. Even the other place adjudged this question of permitting the Board and its subsidiaries to operate commercially to be difficult. I am not trying to circumscribe their freedom of action but I should like it to be clear what it comprises and whether there will be guidelines for us.
  Mr. Kaufman: By leave of the House. I fear that I cannot anticipate what form the guidelines will take and what will be contained within them. Assurances have been given and the House will have the opportunity to consider them when they are produced. It would be wrong of me to anticipate the guidelines tonight. As for the category of company involved, again it will depend upon how the NEB operates. We will not lay down that it shall or shall not go into component manufacture. What kind of NEB would it be if we laid down the categories it was prohibited from going into before the Board even came into existence?
  The hon. Member for Arundel (Mr. Marshall) seems to have been under a misunderstanding. If he looks at paragraph 40 of the White Paper, "The Regeneration of British Industry", from which the Bill stems, he will see that we do not talk of parliamentary control but about Government control. The correspondence between the hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) and the Prime Minister, to which reference has been made, was about the difference between the £5 million in the White Paper and the £10 million in the Bill. It did not extend to the question the hon. Gentleman has raised.
  Mr. Hal Miller: May I take it that the guidelines will apply to clauses other than that dealing with functions and purposes? Will they extend through the Bill?
  Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Gentleman is seeking to draw me on something on which it is not possible to draw me. The guidelines will be made available to the House, as I have assured hon. Members on several occasions. When they are the House will have the answers to the questions put. I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman's questions before the guidelines are available.
  Mr. Stainton: But there is no requirement on the Secretary of State to lay such guidelines. That does not come within

  631
  the Bill. We can assume that they cannot be raised as a matter of order in this Chamber. How do we stand on the guidelines then? Perhaps the Minister could co-operate. I am still waiting patiently for the answer to my question on disposal as opposed to acquisition.
  Mr. Kaufman: There is not provision for disposals in the Bill parallel to acquisitions. The matter is not dealt with in that way.
  I repeat that the Government have given an assurance that the guidelines will be made available to the House.
  Mr. Giles Shaw: It is a gross abuse of the House that we should be informed that there will possibly be guidelines covering a section of the Bill but no guidelines covering the kind of point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove and Redditch (Mr. Miller). We spent hours in Committee trying to elicit from an extremely reluctant Government any concept of planning structure strategy or thinking in the operations of the Board. The most we got was the belief that there might be guidelines available. I am sure that the Under-Secretary would agree that the guidelines should be made available, should be comprehensive, and should be brought to the House as soon as possible.
  Mr. Kaufman: I made it clear to the House on Third Reading that there would be guidelines. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) made it clear that I had made that clear to the House. If the hon. Gentleman did not take the point, I shall certainly make it clear now. I cannot anticipate what form those guidelines will take. After all, the Bill has been mucked about by the House of Lords. Apart from the necessity for consultation, how can we finalise guidelines for an organisation whose constitution has been lacerated and torn to pieces by another place?
  We must have a completed Act of Parliament under which the Board operates before it is sensible to complete guidelines for it. I assure the House that the guidelines will be made available to it. That they will cover several thousand points which hon. Members wish to raise in minute detail, I cannot promise, but they will be made available to the House.
  Mr. Tom King: We have had so many promises of guidelines that we do not take the hon. Gentleman's promises with much more assurance than we took the previous ones from the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn). The Under-Secretary might have come clean. We know what is going on. The Government are only half way through their discussion. Whether they will produce any guidelines, God only knows. To suggest that the Government have been waiting because they did not know what the Bill would look like is rubbish, because they have been having informal discussions and we know that the organising committee of the NEB is already in operation.
  This is the most inadequate answer that we have had in the whole debate. The hon. Gentleman may have decided to sit down rather quickly because this is a rather technical subject and difficult to answer. He failed to answer the point about disposals.
  Mr. Kaufman: I was giving way.
  Mr. King: I understood that the hon. Gentleman had sat down. If the Minister has more to say, I shall gladly wait to hear what it is.
  Mr. Fairbairn: There should not be a necessity for an Act of Parliament of this importance, length and consideration to have guidelines. Acts of Parliament are meant to mean what they say. It should not require a Minister to tell us what the words that we pass as law are supposed to mean. The Government should get it right.
  Mr. Kaufman: I am now in a considerable quandary. One half of the Opposition is nagging me for guidelines, while the more intellectually inclined half of the Opposition says that there should not be any. We have made it clear that we intend to make guidelines available to the House. If the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) says that my promises are worth nothing, there is little point in his asking me to make promises. There is a logical inconsistency there which I cannot seek to penetrate at this hour of night. Nor am I prepared to be patronised by the hon. Gentleman. I recognise my considerable inadequacies which are known to the entire membership of the House of Commons. My failure to understand

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  technical details is so notorious that I do not need it to be drummed into me by the hon Gentleman in this way.
  10.45 p.m.
  I therefore repeat that there will be guidelines, that they will be made available to the House of Commons, that consultations will take place and that when those consultations are completed the guidelines will be made available to the House of Commons.
  Mr. Tom King: If that is the end of the Minister's contribution it has not taken us very much further than we were when I thought he had finished before. Will these guidelines be debatable in the House? I am prepared to give way to the Minister to enable him to tell us. He does not rise and he appears to have no knowledge as to whether they will be debatable. This is a crucial aspect.
  The second point which is not clear is whether the NEB has any power to dispose. We then come to the main point of the amendments. Protection is given under a general authority under Clause 9, a protection which has been much advertised by the Prime Minister. He has said that these matters will be subject to the control of the Secretary of State, but that is a hollow protection because where the general authority is given it totally bypasses any of the limitations and controls. In their amendments their Lordships were seeking to establish some measure of control under any general authority that is given.
  The Minister has the nerve to say that the White Paper does not talk about parliamentary control—and that comes from a party which used to make great play about the need for parliamentary sovereignty. He talks about control by the Government, but he will appreciate that this involves one of the major criticisms of the Bill. It gives a total discretion to the Secretary of State and a lack of effective control by Parliament. In these circumstances we are extremely unhappy that these amendments should be deleted. Nevertheless the Government have imposed a guillotine on these proceedings and there is a crucial debate ahead which we are determined to reach. Under protest, therefore, my right hon. and hon. Friends will not vote against the Government on this amendment, although
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  we deplore the inadequacy of the Government's answer.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Lords Amendments Nos. 27 and 28 disagreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

Clause 14

  COMPENSATION ORDERS
  Lords Amendment: No. 82, in page 15, line 31, leave out from "Parliament" to end of line 38.
  Mr. Varley: I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): The question of privilege is involved in this amendment.
  Mr. Varley: The Government have made it clear that we are pledged to "prompt and fair compensation" for any compulsory acquisition. We said this in the White Paper, and in the House we made a series of amendments to place beyond any doubt that individuals affected by a vesting order would have rights to compensation. I believe, therefore, that we have demonstrated that we are determined to honour our commitment to prompt and fair compensation.
  The point at issue raised by the amendment is a narrower one. The amendment would require that in no circumstances should compensation be paid by the issue of Government stock, but in all cases must be paid in cash. The Bill as it left this House allows for either means of payment, and does not prescribe one or the other. The amendment would restrict the Government, so that only cash payments could be made. This would exclude what has been the normal, although not the sole, means of paying compensation for major nationalisation measures, for which compensation has normally been paid through the issue of Government stock, or through a combination of cash and stock payments. Equally, it might on occasions be to the disadvantage of recipients of compensation to receive payment in cash, since they would then become liable for capital

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  gains tax. On both these counts, the amendment is unacceptable.
  Whatever the means, compensation must be fair; there is no question of the Government attempting to pay any less compensation through the issue of Government stock. The amount of stock paid will be determined by the market value of the stock on the day of payment of compensation, and thus allows, in so far as it is possible to do so, for the recipient of stock, to seek an equivalent cash value, since the two will be inter-convertible. What would not be reasonable is to attempt to restrict the payment of compensation to payment in cash: it would restrict the Government without any benefit in increased guarantee of fair treatment for the recipient of compensation.
  Mr. Nelson: I was relieved to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that the Government are committed to prompt and fair compensation and that that intention is set out in the White Paper. There is nothing in the relevant provisions of the Bill to say that the compensation shall be fair. But my main fear is about compensation paid in the form of Government stock whose nominal value may reflect fair compensation for the shares subject to a vesting order, but whose interest coupon or redemption date makes the real value of the gilt-edged security or Government-owned stock substantially less than its face value.
  To take an obvious example, £100 of stock at nominal value today with a redemption date of the year 2000 and an interest rate of 10 per cent. is worth precisely £68. There is nothing in the Bill which sets out the protection for the shareholder who may have his shares compulsorily acquired under a vesting order and which makes sure that he gets not just the nominal value of Government securities but the fair value as well.
  Those people who received compensation in the past in the form of 2½ per cent. Consolidated Fund Debt find themselves with stock to the princely value today of £17 per £100. There comes a time when one must question the unfettered ability of Government through legislation consistently to issue vast amounts of Government debt. The pub-
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  lic sector borrowing requirement is already being pushed up, with estimates every month, and the unfettered power here, solely at the discretion of the Secretary of State and not of the shareholders to issue Government stock as opposed to cash is unacceptable.
  Second, although a compensation order has to be laid before Parliament, under Clause 14(1) it is required to specify only the manner in which compensation is to be paid and not the value of that compensation. Although disputes arising in connection with a compensation order can be referred to a tribunal constituted as set out under Schedule 3, no terms of reference in that schedule oblige the tribunal to insist on real, as opposed to nominal, compensation.
  Furthermore, if there is a relevant period as defined in Clause 14(3)(e), that is to say, a delay between the vesting of the shares and the payment of compensation, what happens to the shareholder who is compensated in Government stock, the market value of which may decline substantially in a day, let alone a week or a period of months? On Monday of this week, the value of Government stock fell by up to £1·50 for every £100. So even a delay of a day could substantially prejudice a shareholder whose shares are compulsorily acquired under a vesting order.
  If the Government contend, as did the Secretary of State, that Government stock is synonymous with cash compensation, what is the objection to realising the cash value of that Government stock by issuing it on the market, presumably through the Government broker, and paying the proceeds in fair compensation and in real value to the shareholders on the day when the shares are vested?
  I believe that the fair solution would be to give the option to receive either shares or Government stock not solely at the discretion of the Secretary of State but at that of the shareholder. I recognise that, under the existing capital gains tax regime, in certain cases, shareholders who receive cash as opposed to stock may be prejudiced in that they have an immediate capital gains tax liability and would have such a liability if they sold the Government stock within a year of it being acquired.

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  11.0 p.m.
  I happen to feel that there are grave problems with the capital transfer tax system and that is not sufficiently recognised under the present system, but if, as it is, it is fair to give proportionate compensation to shareholders, they should be able to receive cash or Government stock.
  At the very least we should be able to come up with a scheme to enable the Government to issue stock on the market or to underwrite it in a more orderly fashion. There should be no risk of substantially depressing the value of other Government loan at issue, of which we know, there is a vast amount. This would give the shareholder a far better position than under the terms of the Bill. If compensation is, as the Secretary of State says, synonymous with cash, there should be no political objection from either side to what I suggest. It goes across party lines, but—and this is a political point—when we have in the next five years something like 25 per cent. of the public sector stock coming up for renewal and presumably new stock being issued, it is fair for hon. Members to raise objections to the unfettered powers of the Secretary of State to issue more loan stock, to enter into a paper chase and pay compensation for hard-earned company stock on a never-never system of issuing more debt.
  That is a point which we should seriously consider before rejecting this Lords amendment.
  Mr. Ridley: I can answer one of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson). I must apologise for not hearing the Secretary of State. Run though I did, it was a short speech and I did not get here in time to hear it. [Interruption.] It would be unwise for hon. Gentlemen to engage in ribald remarks from a seated position in case I were to turn on them.
  I can tell my hon. Friend why it is not expedient for the Government to issue cash, as opposed to Government stock, in compensation. The reason is that cash issues would have to be included in Estimates and would appear on the public expenditure totals, whereas the issue of stock, in some extraordinary way, is deemed to be some financial transaction not under the scrutiny of the House at Budget time. That is the real reason.
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  So, although we have £9,000 million borrowing, which may turn out to be £12,000 million or £15,000 million—we did not quite understand what the Chancellor was telling us when he made his speech to the bankers last Thursday—he can increase the borrowing without increasing the figures by issuing more stock although that stock can easily be sold and turned into cash.
  One danger of the situation is that the Government may start paying the teachers with stock. It would not appear in expenditure but they would cash the stock and Government expenditure would be augmented without the House being presented with the true figures. That would be totally in accord with the Government way of conducting their financial business, and the Lords have a good point here, which should be supported.
  Turning to the economic effects of the two alternatives—
  Mr. Dennis Canavan: Does the hon. Member not understand that the distinction is that teachers work for a living, whereas shareholders often do no work at all, and others work for them?
  Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman is living in a strange antediluvian world.
  Mr. Canavan: Where teachers work.
  Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman misunderstands my argument which is first, whether it be work or not work, payment is payment and it is possible to pay in stock or cash, stock being easily convertible into cash.
  Mr. Tom King: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Ridley: I will give way to my hon. Friend when I have dealt with this intervention.
  Secondly, it is time that the House considered the idea that those who draw wages work whereas the rest of the population do not. That is totally fallacious. This country is short of savers who produce capital. If they are to be classed as unearned income earners, as parasites, or as people who do not work, if they are to be singled out for the singularly effective invective of the hon. Gentleman such that they quiver in their shoes, and if they are to be taxed to ribbons by

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  the Chancellor, they might stop saving. After all, the savings of ordinary working people are keeping this Government afloat. If the Government are unable to borrow, they will be in even more serious difficulty than they are now. It is time that they stopped attacking savers, because savers are still keeping this Government going.
  Mr. Fairbairn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Ridley: I promised to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King).
  Mr. Tom King: My hon. Friend dealt with the point made by the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) more effectively than I could have done. I was conscious, when the hon. Gentleman intervened, of the case of two teachers in my constituency whose savings from earnings in work, of which I assume he would approve and I trust would approve of their savings as well, are affected because they put them into shares and have been most unfairly compensated. The hon. Gentleman might occasionally look at that side of the coin as well.
  Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend's reminiscence reminds me that a great city across the Atlantic has apparently been rescued from financial bankruptcy by the savings of the teachers. Hon. Gentlemen opposite continue to laugh. I suppose that is out of embarrassment either from total confusion or from a failure to understand the mechanism of savings in an economy. If they can cut short their insularity, their xenophobia, their hatred of things foreign and multi-national and events outside their right little, tight little Socialist Britain in which they seek to live, let them think of New York where the savings of the teachers have rescued the municipality, albeit for only a month or two. However, a month or two in politics is a very long time according to the Prime Minister. What would New York have done without the teachers' savings? What would the Labour Party do without the savings of the people? The Government are borrowing heavily not only abroad, but at home. Therefore, hon. Members opposite should not denigrate those who lend to them, because they can bring them up short.
  Mr. Fairbairn: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that there are two types of teachers: teachers who are earners—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order.
  Mr. Ridley: I have given way again, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sorry.
  Mr. Fairbairn: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that in the "newspeak" of the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) teachers who do not save are workers and teachers who do save are merely shareholders and therefore do not do any work?
  Mr. Ridley rose—
  Mr. Ronald Atkins rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is getting towards midnight. I know the feelings of hon. Members. It is a bewitching hour. Mr. Ridley will reply to the intervention and then I will call Mr. Atkins.
  Mr. Ridley: I have had two or three interventions and, as always, I have tried to give way. When I do not intend to continue I will, if I may, resume my seat. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. Atkins) was trying to intervene or to take up the debate.
  Mr. Ronald Atkins rose—
  Mr. Ridley: I should like to conclude so that the hon. Gentleman may intervene in the debate properly.
  There is one economic effect of giving stock rather than cash. People who receive stock in compensation are almost bound to sell it because it is not the best investment for them to hold and they are likely to spend some of it.
  The effect of receiving an investment which has been held in shares, in terms of gilt-edged, is that one is inclined to buy a new car, decorate the drawing-room, or otherwise cause extra spending. It is easy for the Treasury to argue that swapping equity shares for Government stock is a non-inflationary transaction, but that is only true in theory.
  A person who holds a substantial proportion of shares in a company is likely to hold on to them as a valuable asset which he would not want to dilute. But

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  Government stock has no significance in terms of industrial power or control and he could easily sell part of it to realise cherished ambitions. The effect of this would be to increase consumption within the economy at a time when we are already consuming much more than we should.
  The course suggested by the Government will falsify the public accounts and will be inflationary. If the Government's first priority is to control inflation, they should accept the Lords amendment. It was suggested by hon. Members opposite that their Lordships had no right to interfere in this Bill, but they have been very shrewd. The hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) is clearly an honourable, honest, hardworking man, but he has a certain amount to learn about the role of savings in the economy and about how his Government are financed. I am sure he would like to pay tribute to another place. The Lords have tried to help the Labour Party, which is notoriously weak on these matters, as the interventions in this debate have demonstrated. Hon. Members opposite should all vote for the Lords amendment. It will help them run the economy properly and encourage sound financial practice instead of the profligate way they are following.
  Mr. Ronald Atkins: As the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr Ridley) raised the question of hardworking teachers, perhaps I can give him the benefit of my experience. I was a teacher and, seeking security for my hard-earned savings, I invested in Rolls-Royce. I thought this would be a secure investment, because I could not imagine that any Government would allow a company with such skills in aero-engines to go bust. But a Conservative Government were in power and I lost my investment.
  Mr. Canavan: Shame. Disgrace.
  Mr. Atkins: I know that a Labour Government would not have allowed the company to go bust.
  Being a hard-working teacher and not a skilled investor, I took another risk and invested in British Leyland.
  11.15 p.m.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope that the hon. Member does not end up by inviting
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  Members of Parliament to contribute to remedy his insolvency.
  Mr. Ridley: In view of the hon. Gentleman's self-confessed record so far, may I suggest that he would make an excellent member of the National Enterprise Board.
  Mr. Atkins: That investment did not prove to be sound. I bought the shares at about 14p. The price fell to 5p. Lo and behold, the Labour Government came to my rescue and paid me 10p per share. [HON. MEMBERS: "Too much."]
  The Opposition want the best of both worlds. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) wants cash in some circumstances, but not if it means that there will be a loss on capital gains tax.
  The procedure suggested by the Government is in accord with what happened in the past. When the Opposition mention losses resulting from Stock Exchange dealings in Government stock, they ignore the losses to private shareholders. In the light of experience, Labour Governments have been more than generous in awarding compensation for firms taken over.
  Mr. Varley: The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) raised some important points. I know that he gave this point a great deal of attention in Committee. I found some difficulty in following his meaning. He agreed that it was advantageous for a recipient of compensation to be paid in stock as well as cash. However, if he agreed with the other place in rejecting the payment of compensation by way of stock as well as cash he would lose that advantage. I did not quite understand his advice. However, on reflection I hope that he will consider supporting the Government in rejecting the amendment.
  Mr. Nelson: I stated, perhaps not entirely clearly, that my first preference would be to retain the Lords amendment. However, the best course is not open to us. I refer to the choice of stock or cash which is open only to the Secretary of State but which should also be open to the shareholder.
  Mr. Varley: The hon. Gentleman made his point clear. However, the facts contained in another of his examples were not correct. The basis of the issue of

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  Government stock as compensation is the value of the stock on the day of issue, not its nominal value. Therefore if £100-worth of stock by nominal value is worth £68 on the day of issue it would count as £68, not £100.
  Mr. Nelson: The Minister said that compensation would be paid on the day when the shares were vested. Will the shareholder whose shares are subject to that vesting order be able to dispose of his shares freely, if he wishes, at any time up to that date without delay, or will there be a void period?
  Mr. Varley: I am not certain about that point. When I have the information I shall contact the hon. Gentleman and we may arrange for the House to be informed about the matter. I cannot give an off the cuff answer now.
  I am sorry to hear of the difficulties of my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Mr. Atkins). He had a very unsatisfactory experience in his dealings with British industry. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) suggested that my hon. Friend would qualify as a member of the NEB. I have given some thought to this. The hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, who has great experience in these matters, was on my short list as a possible member of the NEB, but I remembered that a few years ago he said in a speech in the House that it would be much better for investors to invest in bowling alleys and bingo halls than in the steel industry. Perhaps he would not be a suitable member of the NEB.
  The Bill says that there shall be compensation. The meaning of "compensation" is "something which compensates" and it must therefore be fair compensation. My legal advice is that to add "fair" to the Bill would make no difference. The compensation order which sets out the amount and basis of the compensation will have to be approved by the House and there will be parliamentary control.
  Mr. Heseltine: Although this is a serious matter, I do not wish to detain the House. If we are to have any prospect of later debates we must move on. My hon. Friends will have been dismayed, as I am, by the lack of comprehension on the part of the Secretary of State. My
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  hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) put to him a serious situation of hardship which in all equity should have appalled the right hon. Gentleman. As I doubt whether even now he has fully understood the position revealed by my hon. Friend, I will put it to him again.
  The owners of shares in a significant national company—it might be quite small and it might operate in the field of higher technology—with a record of considerable growth have, before the vesting order is made, a prospect of capital improvement and a prospect of increased earnings on capital in the years ahead. When the vesting order is made they will swap compulsorily the equity in the company concerned for Government stock, without option.
  If those share owners come to the conclusion that Government stock is likely to be a depreciating asset they might prudently wish to sell, but if they do so capital gains tax on the Government stock they have been forced to accept is payable. Not only are they deprived of a growth holding in a successful company, but they are expected to replace the income from it with a cash product from Government stock which they have had to sell to protect their future assets. They will be 30 per cent. worse off in cash terms the day they convert Government stock into cash base to produce equivalent income and protection in the future for what was equity in a growing and successful company. If the Secretary of State cannot understand the inequity of that situation he has not thought through the Bill as it stands.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

Clause 16

  FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE UNDER INDUSTRY ACT 1972 FOR BODIES CORPORATE WHICH MAKE PLANNING AGREEMENTS.
  Lords Amendment: No. 91, in page 16, line 26, leave out "may be not" and insert "shall not be".
  Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move, That the House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.

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  The clause repeats the words of the 1972 Act, which is the authority for the payment of all regional development grants. Clause 1(1) of that Act reads as follows:
  "The Secretary of State may make a grant to a person towards approved capital expenditure."
  That is a quotation from the Tory Act of Parliament for which Conservative Members voted and whose words they now find unsatisfactory because they have changed sides meanwhile.
  Anyone who has experience of the operation of the regional development grant system knows that, despite the word "may", payment of grant is virtually automatic to all who satisfy the rules. The word "may", however, permits the application of administrative rules which would have to be spelled out in the Act itself if it were cast in mandatory form.
  It is desirable that the Secretary of State should be able to give additional certainty to planning agreement companies in respect of regional development grants for appropriate projects in return for the greater assurance which the Government and their workers will have about their future plans as a result of the planning agreement. But it would be inapposite for the Secretary of State to have to offer this for all projects. It would make it impossible, for example, for the Secretary of State to make the offer dependent on certain conditions. All projects would receive the benefits, irrespective of whether the company offered an adequate bargain.
  But this amendment would be more damaging than that. It would have the ridiculous effect that if a company made a planning agreement one day and the next day denounced it completely, the Secretary of State would still be obliged to give the company the benefit of the "guarantee" of the regional development grant for projects which had been identified in the agreement.
  I am surprised that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury can remain conscious in face of such a prospect.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.

Clause 22

  PERSONS TO WHOM DUTY TO DISCLOSE INFORMATION APPLIES
  Lords Amendment: No. 96, in page 19, line 34, leave out from "and" to "with" in line 35 and insert "employee representatives".
  Mr. Varley: I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we shall take the subsequent Lords amendments associated with it.
  Mr. Varley: We here have one of the clearest differences made to the Bill in the other place. In this House, after very full discussion of the question, it was decided that information should be made available to trade union representatives, as those best able to fulfil the responsibilities involved. In another place, the change has been made to provide information to employee representatives, and an employee representative has been defined in such a way that it would be impossible for workers in a company to elect a full-time trade union official to be their representative. Instead, the employee representative must be a full-time employee in the concern. This is an approach we on this side totally reject.
  We believe that information should be passed to trade union representatives. The Bill therefore before these amendments specified that information should be made available to trade union representatives; but it did not specify who they should be. This gave the company considerable discretion as to which representatives of unions should be furnished with information. It could be union representatives at the level of the plant, for example shop stewards within the company, or it could be district or national officials of the union. The choice was deliberately left to the company, so that it could make arrangements for disclosure that matched its established arrangements for consultation and collective bargaining. The Bill thus provided a considerable measure of flexibility, to match the particular circumstances of a company.

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  Moreover, the Bill in no way prevented employers from disclosing information to non-union representatives; they could continue or extend existing voluntary arrangements. It was open to the company to provide information by other means: a company was completely free to provide the information it was required to furnish to trade union representatives to other employees—for example, to works councils or to staff associations where these existed—or direct to all employees. We in no way wish to prevent this, and the Bill would in no way hinder this. In addition, it was open to all employees to join trade unions and to trade unions to seek recognition from an employer, in order to benefit from the statutory requirements of the information disclosure clauses.
  11.30 p.m.
  What the Government do not accept is that there should be a statutory duty for information to be disclosed to representatives of workers other than union representatives. Consultations, and information disclosure, are inescapably linked with collective bargaining: collective bargaining must involve consultations, and collective bargaining is the responsibility of trade unions. Any attempt to separate them, so that unions dealt with collective bargaining and other representatives with consultation, will result in misunderstanding and confusion. Rather, we are concerned to accept that unions have a role, and to take the steps necessary to ensure that there will be strong and responsible unions to discharge their powers and their duties. This we view as a step towards our goal of strong and responsible unions playing a constructive part in collective bargaining, in consultations and in industrial democracy.
  The Government wish to encourage the development of strong responsible and independent trade unions. We believe that trade unions are the proper means through which workers can have an effective say in management decisions which affect their working lives, and we made this clear in the White Paper, when we spoke of
  "trade union representations from the firm"
  and of "union representatives from companies" as the means of disclosure. To this end this Bill and the Employment
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  Protection Bill which is before Parliament at the moment aim to strengthen the rights of trade unions in collective bargaining and in discussion with consultation about the future of companies.
  Instead of this, we have a definition of employee representatives which would exclude full-time officials, and would thus in an important respect limit workers' choice. The effects of this are far reaching: disclosure is to be made only to persons who are the elected representatives of employees in the company or companies concerned. But in many organisations there are no persons who are elected as representatives of the employees.
  What is more, as was made very clear, these reserve powers are to be used only in those cases where the employer refuses to make satisfactory voluntary arrangements. This is just the kind of employer who is least likely to have in existence a system for electing representatives of his employees. Yet if there are no such duly elected representatives the requirements of this Bill will not touch that employer. There is, therefore, a considerable danger that this amendment would make this part of the Bill a dead letter. That is why we disagree with the amendment.
  Mr. Heseltine: I understand the Secretary of State's rationalisation in putting forward the concept that members of trade unions should have a special privilege in the consultation processes with the companies in which they are employed. However, his explanation did not do justice to the fact that in the early days of the negotiations about the drafting of the Bill the view of the Minister responsible for it was that the information should go, not to the trade union, but to the employees. The pressures which were brought to bear—not from within the Government, but from outside the Government—led ultimately to the present drafting of the Bill.
  It is not a criticism of the rôle of the unions to say that there are other working for companies—often large numbers—who have no wish to be members of unions. Some companies have managed to organise their relations with their employees through different processes of consultation and involvement which have nothing to do with unions and the employees of such companies are perfectly

  649
  satisfied with the framework of consultation and representation which exists. Therefore, it can only be regarded as a retrograde step that the Government are now singling out one group of people in industry as against another. There is no evidence to lead one to suppose that the unions are able to represent the people who belong to those unions better than other forms of employee representation in industry. The fact is that there are some 10 million people working in British industry who are not members of unions. I find it extraordinary, therefore, that the Secretary of State should say that it is only those who have joined unions who should be entitled to the special privileges of the Bill.
  Mr. Heffer: Would the hon. Gentleman explain who represents those who are not in trade unions at shop floor level? Whom do they elect to speak for them?
  Mr. Heseltine: There are many companies which have very effective staff associations, where there is wide consultation at all levels in the company, and there are companies—hon. Members opposite know them as well as I do—where the unions have been unable to persuade the employees to abandon their staff associations in favour of the unions.
  I wish to express no preference for a system of staff associations as against unions. I merely make the point that the people who opt for staff associations are as entitled to have their wishes heard as are people who have opted for the trade union system. [Interruption.] It is, if I may say so to hon. Members opposite, their automatic reaction every time anyone suggests an alternative to the suggestion that trade unions have a divine right, to drown the voice of anyone who advocates an alternative system.
  I find it a wholly repugnant intellectual concept that we should talk about democracy at a time when we are giving to union members rights which we are not prepared to give to others. If the companies are to be given discretion in the case of their non-union members, why not give them discretion in the case of their union members? Why should there not be the same degree of compulsion in giving information to non-union members? What is it that singles out a person who joins a union as being entitled to special privileges, other than the political
  650
  pressure that the unions are able to exercise on the Labour Party? That is the only discriminating factor, and it is an unethical factor on which to base the law of the land.
  The second point which the Secretary of State made was that it should be possible for the trade unions to choose a representative who is not employed in the company. That means that he has to be a full-time trade union official outside. The argument has an inconsistency. It is possible that as the disclosure of information develops, it will be positively against the interests of employees in companies that full-time union representatives not employed in the companies should have access to the sort of information envisaged in the Bill.
  To give an obvious example, if the full-time union representative not employed in a company were to discover, under a system of compulsory disclosure, that the plans of that company were in conflict with plans of a larger company where he had more members of the same union, that company being in competition with the smaller company, the interests of that trade union official would not be with the company from which he got the information; they would be with the company where he had the larger number of members.
  That is diametrically opposed to the interests of the employees of the company, trade unionists or otherwise, from which the information originally came. There is divided loyalty in the appointment of an outside trade union representative to represent employees in all conceivable circumstances. Although we shall not have a chance to debate the matter, I understand that it is the Government's intention to resist the amendment dealing with disclosure to members of a company. That would make an equivalent amount of information available to them.
  I believe that the Government are putting outside union members in a dangerous situation. They will accumulate a range of information which will put them in the position of insider dealers. I do not wish to cast aspersions on the morality of the union officials who are given the information. I merely make the point that they will be entrusted with information which will not be available to the market at large and that large

  651
  sums will be at stake. That is an intolerable situation which is against the whole basis of the system that we now have for raising funds and supplying capital for the vast majority of British manufacturing industry. That must be so if one group of people should be entrusted with information which other people will not be made aware of at the same time. There must be the risk that people will turn such information to their private gain.
  If any similar proposal was put before the House which applied to any other class of people, Labour Members would be the first to come forward with the most virulent attack upon such privileges and the dangers inherent in them. I give an example of the dangers that follow from entrusting information to people not employed in the company that the information concerns. Let us consider the position of overseas investment. It might well be that a company with large union representation within it sees its growth prospects in developing not only in the British market but in the overseas markets. The employees of the company, both union and non-union, may be convinced that the industrial strategy for their company depends upon such expansion. However, the non-employee union representative who is outside the company might know that one of his other companies will be prejudiced if the company from which he gets the information is allowed to expand in overseas markets and to compete with the other undertaking which he also happens to represent. He is placed in an impossible position of divided loyalties.
  I have no doubt that we should recommend that the Lords are right in the amendment that they have put before the House. Firstly, it is alien to any real concept of democracy that we should have privilege for one group and not for another—namely, those who are not members of a union. Secondly, the proposal put forward by the Government has nothing to do with good employee relations—indeed, I would say the reverse. By treating one group as privileged and the other as unprivileged we are setting apart employees when the whole emphasis should be on treating them alike.
  Those of us who have followed this legislation will know that this is one more
  652
  political deal that has been done by the Labour Party for its political masters in the unions. We shall support the Lords amendment.
  Mr. Heffer: The hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) has made one of his usual speeches which avoid the real issues. Quite clearly he does not understand the real issues. The hon. Gentleman, like so many of his hon. Friends, seems to have a thing about trade union representatives. A trade union representative is probably the most democratically appointed person in the country. Conservative hon. Members have had very little experience of the shop floor. They do not know that workers come together to elect their shop stewards. If they do not wish to continue with them they can call another meeting to remove them. In fact, they often do so.
  11.45 p.m.
  Conservative Members have no real knowledge of what happens. Some do—perhaps one or two. They do have knowledge of what happens in the board room. We either have organisation in industry or we have chaos. If we give information we have to give it to someone so that it can be disseminated among the mass of the workers. How is that to be done? By giving it to the elected representatives of the work force.
  Mr. Stainton rose—
  Mr. Fairbairn rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. Let us have one speaker at a time.
  Mr. Stainton: I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. On this question of disclosure, the most outrageous case that has come to my notice—and I do not say this in an anti-trade union sense but it is of relevance—concerns the leak at the Labour Party Conference of the discussions that were going on between the National Dock Board and the Felixstowe Dock company. The shares of that company were quoted at 87p and the offer being discussed was 150p. There was a leak at the conference through the representative of the Transport and General Workers' Union that was picked up by the Daily Telegraph. It was leaked to the City. Is that in any sense defensible?
  Mr. Heffer: I do not know that there was such a leak from trade union representatives. The hon. Member must prove that. I do not know that there is any proof one way or the other. This is somewhat irrelevant to the points we are discussing. We are discussing two separate points. First, there is the question of who will have the information to disseminate it among the work force.
  Mr. Fairbairn: That is the second time that the hon. Member has asked who shall have the information so that it may be disseminated. The funny thing about the Industry Bill is that it says nothing about the duty to disseminate. It says nothing about to whom information shall be disseminated or whether it shall be squinted at by anyone in the meantime. The information is to go to representatives of trade unions and no further. That is the plot.
  Mr. Heffer: That is an argument that came up in Committee. It was explained by Government Ministers and by other hon. Members. What happens in industry is that a shop steward is elected. He calls a meeting of the work force and explains the situation. If there are printed documents from the company arrangements are made for them to be disseminated. I cannot help it if hon. Members do not understand what happens in industry. We have tried to explain it many times. That is the reality of the situation.
  Conservative Members have spoken of staff associations. It is true that in certain industries—usually among the staff not the manual workers—there are such associations. It is interesting to note that more and more of these associations are now opting to join bona fide trade unions. Many of them are joining as staff associations. They are entering, for example, ASTMS, the General and Municipal Workers' Union, the Transport and General Workers' Union, APEX and other unions that cater for those sections of workers. That is happening increasingly, because they are finding that as staff associations they have no real powers in negotiations with the employers. The argument about staff associations is artificial and phony.
  I shall tell the hon. Gentleman something about the so-called works committees which are not made up of the elected
  654
  shop stewards' representatives. I had experience of them in the dock board in Liverpool. Many of them were made up of workers who were supposedly elected. In some cases they were nominated. When it came down to discussions about the real life of the workers in the docks the committees were told that it was not something that they could discuss because it was a trade union matter. They ended up by dealing with canteens and similar matters, and had no influence on the working life and conditions.
  As a result of their own experience, workers have increasingly replaced such organisations by shop stewards' committees and workers' representatives elected through the trade union movement. The real representatives of workers are those who belong to their trade unions and are elected by their trade union and who can be removed by the workers through their trade union organisation. The alternative is chaos.
  Mr. Hal Miller: A large manufacturer in my constituency is trying to introduce worker participation in decision-taking, and has insisted on a shop floor election of representatives—[Interruption.]—something which I understood the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) to approve of. There was no reason why the workers should not have elected the shop stewards, but they elected only three out of the 11 on the body carrying out the participation. The people my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) was objecting to were the trade union representatives from outside the plant. That is not shop floor democracy, because they are not involved in the company. Will the hon. Gentleman address himself to that point?
  Mr. Heffer: I said that there were two points to the argument. One was the representatives at shop floor level, and the other was the fact that trade union officials who were responsible not to one company but to the trade union as a whole had information given to them. That is a more serious argument. The other is totally phony, based upon ignorance of what happens in industry.
  The other argument has more substance, in that a trade union official is responsible not to only one group of workers in one company but to workers

  655
  throughout the whole of an area, region or district. I know that it was suggested that there was a leak at the Labour Party Conference, but in practice every trade unionist knows that when information is imparted to trade union officials it is not used in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggested, to line their own pockets. That is the most absurd suggestion I have ever heard. The trade union official represents the workers in different companies perhaps in the same industry, but he is concerned for their full employment, irrespective of which company they work for. No hon. Member could give any example of the misuse of information to the detriment of a company.
  Mr. Heseltine: That may be so, but is that possibly because there has never before been a law to compel the disclosure of information?
  Mr. Heffer: I now come to the last point of the argument—
  Mr. Heseltine: Answer the question.
  Mr. Heffer: I am doing so, but in my own way. I do not need the hon. Member to tell me how to do it. He is deft at not answering questions. The basic objection of the hon. Member and his hon. Friends is to any disclosure of information to trade unionists or workers. They suggest that they are in favour of disclosure and of industrial democracy but when a definite proposal comes before the House they find a million reasons for opposing it.
  The basic reason for their opposition is that they know that when a worker knows precisely what happens in a company he is in a better position to negotiate better wages and conditions and to determine the future direction that the company should take. One of the lessons we must learn from modern industry is that workers no longer wish to be merely cogs in the industrial machine. They want a say in the managerial functions. It is therefore vital that the workers should get this information.
  Take the example of workers' co-operatives like KME in Kirkby. The workers are involved in the decision-making and they have a greater sense of responsibility to the company and the industry in which they work. They have a stake in the company. That demonstrates why we believe in the greatest possible disclosure to the workers.
  Hon. Members should know that I was in at the beginning of the Bill and I have a right to be in at the end of it. I have a right to support the best elements in this Bill. One of the most important parts of the Bill is precisely—
  It being Twelve o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker proceeded, pursuant to Order this day, to put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair.
  Question put, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  The House divided: Ayes 272, Noes 250.

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

  Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

  Rose, Paul B.

  Flannery, Martin

  McCartney, Hugh

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  McCusker, H.

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  McElhone, Frank

  Rowlands, Ted

  Ford, Ben

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  Sandelson, Neville

  Forrester, John

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Selby, Harry

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

  Freeson, Reginald

  Maclennan, Robert

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

  Garrett, W E. (Wallsend)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  George, Bruce

  McNamara, Kevin

  Short, Rt. Hon E. (Newcastle C)

  Gilbert, Dr John

  Madden, Max

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Ginsburg, David

  Magee, Bryan

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Gould, Bryan

  Mahon, Simon

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.

  Sillars, James

  Graham, Ted

  Marks, Kenneth

  Silverman, Julius

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Marquand, David

  Skinner, Dennis

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Small, William

  Grocott, Bruce

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Snape, Peter

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Spearing, Nigel

  Hart, Rt Hon Judith

  Meacher, Michael

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Hatton, Frank

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Stallard, A. W.

  Hayman, Mrs. Helene

  Mikardo, Ian

  Stoddart, David

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Millan, Bruce

  Stott, Roger

  Horam, John

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Strang, Gavin

  Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

  Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Molloy, William

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Molyneaux, James

  Swain, Thomas

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Moonman, Eric

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Hunter, Adam

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  Moyle, Roland

  Tierney, Sydney

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Tomlinson, John

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Newens, Stanley

  Tomney, Frank

  Janner, Greville

  Noble, Mike

  Torney, Tom

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Oakes, Gordon

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Jeger, Mrs Lena

  Ogden, Eric

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

  John, Brynmor

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Ovenden, John

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

  Owen, Dr David

  Ward, Michael

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Padley, Walter

  Watkins, David

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Park, George

  Watkinson, John

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Parker, John

  Weetch, Ken

  Judd, Frank

  Parry, Robert

  Weitzman, David

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Wellbeloved, James

  Kellsy, Richard

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Pendry, Tom

  White, James (Pollok)

  Kinnock, Neil

  Perry, Ernest

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Lambie, David

  Phipps, Dr Colin

  Whitlock, William

  Lamborn, Harry

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Lamond, James

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)

  Lee, John

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Radice, Giles

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Lever, Rt Hon Harold

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Lipton, Marcus

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Woof, Robert

  Litterick, Tom

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Luard, Evan

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Mr. Donald Coleman and

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Mr. Joseph Harper.

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Bottomley, Peter

  Carr, Rt Hon Robert

  Alison, Michael

  Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Arnold, Tom

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Churchill, W. S.

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Awdry, Daniel

  Brittan, Leon

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Baker, Kenneth

  Brotherton, Michael

  Cockcroft, John

  Banks, Robert

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Beith, A. J.

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Cope, John

  Bell, Ronald

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Cordle, John H.

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Buck, Antony

  Cormack, Patrick

  Biffen, John

  Budgen, Nick

  Crawford, Douglas

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Critchley, Julian

  Blaker, Peter

  Burden, F, A.

  Crouch, David

  Body, Richard

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Crowder, F. P.

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Carlisle, Mark

  Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  12.12 a.m.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Before proceeding further, I call the attention of the House to the fact that privilege is involved in Lords Amendments Nos. 177 and 178.
  Under the terms of the Allocation of Time Order agreed to by the House
  660
  earlier today, I shall now proceed to put separately the Question on those Lords amendments to which the Government have tabled a motion to disagree, followed, in each case, where appropriate, by the Question on the amendment in lieu to be made.
  When we come to Lords Amendment No. 149, I shall put the Question that the

  661
  amendment to the Lords amendment be made, followed by the Question on the Lords amendment itself.
  When we come to Lords Amendment No. 151, I shall put the Question, That the House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment and then, if that motion is agreed to, the Question that amendments be made to the words so restored to the Bill.
  When we come to any amendment which involves privilege, I shall call the attention of the House to the fact, and put the appropriate Question.
  Finally, I shall put en bloc the Question, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the remaining Lords amendments.
  Now that that is clear, with the leave of the House I propose to take together Lords Amendments Nos. 99, 100, 101, 102 and 108.
  Lords amendments disagreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 109, in page 21, line 2, leave out from "and" to "an" in line 3 and insert "employee representatives".—[Mr. Varley.]
  Question, That the House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: In page 21, line 2, leave out 'a' and insert ' the authorised'.—[Mr. Varley.]
  and add the following clause:

  MEANING OF 'REPRESENTATIVE AND' AUTHORISED REPRESENTATIVE
  '(1) In this Part of this Act—
  "authorised representative" means a representative of a relevant trade union to whom the company or companies concerned give—

  (a) a notice of service of a preliminary notice, or

  (b) a notice under subsection (2) below; and

  "representative" means an official or other person who is authorised by a relevant trade union to carry on negotiations about one or more of the matters specified in section 29(1) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974.
  (2) If an authorised representative—

  (a)ceases to be a representative of the relevant trade union of which he is the authorised representative, or

  (b)gives the company or companies concerned notice that he desires to be discharged
  662
  from acting as authorised representative of that union, or

  (c) ceases for any other reason to be available to act as that union's authorised representative,

  it shall be the duty of the company or companies concerned—

  (i) to give another representative of the relevant trade union notice that he is to be the authorised representative of that union, and

  (ii) to give the Minister a notice requesting him to insert the name of the new representative in the list of authorised representatives in place of that of the old representative '.—[Mr. Varley.]

Clause 23

  DUTY TO GIVE INFORMATION TO MINISTER
  Lords Amendment: No. 118, in page 22, line 8, leave out from "to" to end of line and insert "employee representatives".—[Mr. Varley.]
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: leave out ' a' and insert ' the authorised '.—[Mr. Varley.]

Clause 24

  INFORMATION FOR TRADE UNIONS
  Lords Amendment: No. 119, in page 22, line 22, leave out from second "to" to "within" in line 23 and insert "employee representatives".—[Mr. Varley.]
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: In page 22, line 22, leave out 'a' and insert 'the authorised'.—[Mr. Varley.]
  Lords Amendment: No. 120, in page 22, line 23, after the words last inserted insert:
  "and to the members of the company or companies".—[Mr. Varley.]
  Question put, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment:
  The House divided: Ayes 283, Noes 239.

  Division No. 354.]

  AYES

  [12 midnight

  Abse, Leo

  Campbell, Ian

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

  Allaun, Frank

  Canavan, Dennis

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

  Anderson, Donald

  Cant, R. B.

  Deakins, Eric

  Archer, Peter

  Carmichael, Neil

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Carson, John

  Delargy, Hugh

  Ashley, Jack

  Carter, Ray

  Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Dempsey, James

  Atkinson, Norman

  Cartwright, John

  Doig, Peter

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

  Dormand, J. D.

  Bates, Alt

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Bean, R. E.

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Cohen, Stanley

  Dunlop, John

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

  Dunn, James A.

  Bishop, E. S.

  Concannon, J. D.

  Dunnett, Jack

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Conlan, Bernard

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Boardman, H.

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Eadie, Alex

  Booth, Albert

  Corbett, Robin

  Edelman, Maurice

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  Edge, Geoff

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

  Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Boyden, James (Bish Auck)

  Crawshaw, Richard

  English, Michael

  Bradley, Tom

  Cronin, John

  Ennals, David

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Cryer, Bob

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Buchanan, Richard

  Davidson, Arthur

  Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

  Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

  Rose, Paul B.

  Flannery, Martin

  McCartney, Hugh

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  McCusker, H.

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  McElhone, Frank

  Rowlands, Ted

  Ford, Ben

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  Sandelson, Neville

  Forrester, John

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Selby, Harry

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

  Freeson, Reginald

  Maclennan, Robert

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

  Garrett, W E. (Wallsend)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  George, Bruce

  McNamara, Kevin

  Short, Rt. Hon E. (Newcastle C)

  Gilbert, Dr John

  Madden, Max

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Ginsburg, David

  Magee, Bryan

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Gould, Bryan

  Mahon, Simon

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.

  Sillars, James

  Graham, Ted

  Marks, Kenneth

  Silverman, Julius

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Marquand, David

  Skinner, Dennis

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Small, William

  Grocott, Bruce

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Snape, Peter

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Spearing, Nigel

  Hart, Rt Hon Judith

  Meacher, Michael

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Hatton, Frank

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Stallard, A. W.

  Hayman, Mrs. Helene

  Mikardo, Ian

  Stoddart, David

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Millan, Bruce

  Stott, Roger

  Horam, John

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Strang, Gavin

  Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

  Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Molloy, William

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Molyneaux, James

  Swain, Thomas

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Moonman, Eric

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Hunter, Adam

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  Moyle, Roland

  Tierney, Sydney

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Tomlinson, John

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Newens, Stanley

  Tomney, Frank

  Janner, Greville

  Noble, Mike

  Torney, Tom

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Oakes, Gordon

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Jeger, Mrs Lena

  Ogden, Eric

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

  John, Brynmor

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Ovenden, John

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

  Owen, Dr David

  Ward, Michael

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Padley, Walter

  Watkins, David

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Park, George

  Watkinson, John

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Parker, John

  Weetch, Ken

  Judd, Frank

  Parry, Robert

  Weitzman, David

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Wellbeloved, James

  Kellsy, Richard

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Pendry, Tom

  White, James (Pollok)

  Kinnock, Neil

  Perry, Ernest

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Lambie, David

  Phipps, Dr Colin

  Whitlock, William

  Lamborn, Harry

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Lamond, James

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)

  Lee, John

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Radice, Giles

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Lever, Rt Hon Harold

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Lipton, Marcus

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Woof, Robert

  Litterick, Tom

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Luard, Evan

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Mr. Donald Coleman and

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Mr. Joseph Harper.

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Bottomley, Peter

  Carr, Rt Hon Robert

  Alison, Michael

  Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Arnold, Tom

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Churchill, W. S.

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Awdry, Daniel

  Brittan, Leon

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Baker, Kenneth

  Brotherton, Michael

  Cockcroft, John

  Banks, Robert

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Beith, A. J.

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Cope, John

  Bell, Ronald

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Cordle, John H.

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Buck, Antony

  Cormack, Patrick

  Biffen, John

  Budgen, Nick

  Crawford, Douglas

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Critchley, Julian

  Blaker, Peter

  Burden, F, A.

  Crouch, David

  Body, Richard

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Crowder, F. P.

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Carlisle, Mark

  Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

  Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

  Jopling, Michael

  Rathbone, Tim

  Dodsworth, Geoffrey

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Drayson, Burnaby

  Kilfedder, James

  Reid, George

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Kimball, Marcus

  Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

  Durant, Tony

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Elliott, Sir William

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Emery, Peter

  Knox, David

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Lamont, Norman

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)

  Lane, David

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Latham, Michael (Melton)

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Lawrence, Ivan

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Farr, John

  Lawson, Nigel

  Scott, Nicholas

  Fell, Anthony

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Loveridge, John

  Shepherd, Colin

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Shersby, Michael

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  MacCormick, Iain

  Sims, Roger

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

  McCrindle, Robert

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Fox, Marcus

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  MacGregor, John

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Fry, Peter

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

  Speed, Keith

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Spicer, Michael (S. Worcester)

  Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

  Madel, David

  Sproat, Iain

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Stainton, Keith

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Marten, Neil

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Mates, Michael

  Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

  Godber, Rt Hon Joseph

  Mather, Carol

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Goodhart, Philip

  Maude, Angus

  Stokes, John

  Goodhew, Victor

  Mawby, Ray

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Tapsell, Peter

  Gorst, John

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Mills, Peter

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Gray, Hamish

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Grieve, Percy

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)

  Grist, Ian

  Moate, Roger

  Townsend, Cyril D.

  Hall, Sir John

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Trotter, Neville

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Moore, John (Croydon C)

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Hannam, John

  Morgan, Geraint

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

  Viggers, Peter

  Hastings, Stephen

  Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Wakeham, John

  Hawkins, Paul

  Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Mudd, David

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Neave, Airey

  Wall, Patrick

  Henderson, Douglas

  Nelson, Anthony

  Walters, Dennis

  Heseltine, Michael

  Neubert, Michael

  Watt, Hamish

  Hicks, Robert

  Newton, Tony

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Nott, John

  Wells, John

  Hordern, Peter

  Onslow, Cranley

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Hunt, John

  Pardoe, John

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Hurd, Douglas

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Wood, Rt Hon Richard

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Penhaligon, David

  Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Percival, Ian

  Younger, Hon George

  James, David

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Jenkin, Rt Hn P. (Wanst'd & W'df'd)

  Pink, R. Bonner

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Jessel, Toby

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Mr. Richard Luce and

  Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Mr. Fred Silvester.

  Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

  Raison, Timothy

  Division No. 355.]

  AYES

  [12.16 a.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Madden, Max

  Allaun, Frank

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

  Magee, Bryan

  Anderson, Donald

  Flannery, Martin

  Mahon, Simon

  Archer, Peter

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Marks, Kenneth

  Ashley, Jack

  Ford, Ben

  Marquand, David

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Forrester, John

  Marshall, Or Edmund (Goole)

  Atkinson, Norman

  Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Freeson, Reginald

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Bates, Alf

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Meacher, Michael

  Bean, R. E.

  George, Bruce

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Gilbert, Dr John

  Mikardo, Ian

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Ginsburg, David

  Millan, Bruce

  Bishop, E. S.

  Gould, Bryan

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Gourlay, Harry

  Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

  Boardman, H.

  Graham, Ted

  Molloy, William

  Booth, Albert

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Molyneaux, James

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Moonman, Eric

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

  Grocott, Bruce

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Boyden, James (Bish Auck)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Bradley, Tom

  Harper, Joseph

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Moyle, Roland

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Hart, Rt Hon Judith

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Hatton, Frank

  Newens, Stanley

  Buchanan, Richard

  Hayman, Mrs. Helene

  Noble, Mike

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Oakes, Gordon

  Campbell, Ian

  Henderson, Douglas

  Ogden, Eric

  Canavan, Dennis

  Horam, John

  O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian

  Cant, R. B.

  Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Carmichael, Neil

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Carson, John

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Ovenden, John

  Carter, Ray

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Owen, Dr David

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Padley, Walter

  Cartwright, John

  Hunter, Adam

  Park, George

  Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

  Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

  Parker, John.

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  Parry, Robert

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Peart, Rt Hon Free

  Cohen, Stanley

  Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

  Pendry, Tom

  Coleman, Donald

  Janner, Greville

  Perry, Ernest

  Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Phipps, Dr Colin

  Concannon, J. D.

  Jeger, Mrs Lena

  Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

  Conlan, Bernard

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  John, Brynmor

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Corbett, Robin

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

  Radice, Giles

  Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Crawford, Douglas

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Reid, George

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Cronin, John

  Judd, Frank

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Cryer, Bob

  Kelley, Richard

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Davidson, Arthur

  Kinnock, Neil

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Lambie, David

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Davies, Denzil (Lianelll)

  Lamborn, Harry

  Rooker, J. W.

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

  Lamond, James

  Rose, Paul B.

  Deakins, Eric

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Lee, John

  Ross, William (Londonderry)

  Delargy, Hugh

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

  Lever, Rt Hon Harold

  Sandelson, Neville

  Dempsey, James

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Doig, Peter

  Lipton, Marcus

  Selby, Harry

  Dormand, J. D.

  Litterick, Tom

  Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Loyden, Eddie

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Dunn, James A.

  Luard, Evan

  Short, Rt. Hon E. (Newcastle C)

  Dunnett, Jack

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Eadie, Alex

  Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Edelman, Maurice

  McCartney, Hugh

  Sillars, James

  Edge, Geoff

  MacCormick, Iain

  Silverman, Julius

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  McCusker, H.

  Skinner, Dennis

  English, Michael

  McElhone, Frank

  Small, William

  Ennais, David

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Snape, Peter

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Spearing, Nigel

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Maclennan, Robert

  Stallard, A. W.

  Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Stott, Roger

  Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

  McNamara, Kevin

  Strang, Gavin

  Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)

  Swain, Thomas

  Ward, Michael

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Watkins, David

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Watkinson, John

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Watt, Hamish

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Weetch, Ken

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Weitzman, David

  Woof, Robert

  Tierney, Sydney

  Wellbeloved, James

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Tomlinson, John

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Tomney, Frank

  White, James (Pollok)

  Torney, Tom

  Whitehead, Phillip

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Whitlock, William

  Mr. David Stoddart and

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Mr. Laurie Pavitt.

  Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Fry, Peter

  MacGregor, John

  Alison, Michael

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Arnold, Tom

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Awdry, Daniel

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

  Madel, David

  Baker, Kenneth

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Banks, Robert

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Marten, Nell

  Beith, A. J.

  Godber, Rt Hon Joseph

  Mates, Michael

  Bell, Ronald

  Goodhart, Philip

  Mather, Carol

  Biffen, John

  Goodhew, Victor

  Maude, Angus

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Goodlad, Alastalr

  Mawby, Ray

  Blaker, Peler

  Gorst, John

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Body, Richard

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Bottomley, Peter

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

  Gray, Hamish

  Mills, Peter

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Grieve, Percy

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Grist, Ian

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Brittan, Leon

  Hall, Sir John

  Moate, Roger

  Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Brotherton, Michael

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Moore, John (Croydon C)

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Hannam, John

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

  Morgan, Geraint

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Hastings, Stephen

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

  Buck, Antony

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

  Budgen, Nick

  Hawkins, Paul

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

  Burden, F. A.

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Mudd, David

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Heseltine, Michael

  Neave, Airey

  Carlisle, Mark

  Hicks, Robert

  Nelson, Anthony

  Carr, Rt Hon Robert

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Neubert, Michael

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Hordern, Peter

  Newton, Tony

  Churchill, W. S.

  Howe st Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Nott, John

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Onslow, Cranley

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Hunt, John

  Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushclifle)

  Hurd, Douglas

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Cockcroft, John

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Pardoe, John

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Cope, John

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Cordle, John H.

  James, David

  Penhaligon, David

  Cormack, Patrick

  Jenkin, Rt Hn P. (Wanst'd & W'df'd)

  Percival, Ian

  Critchley, Julian

  Jessel, Toby

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Crouch, David

  Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Crowder, F. P.

  Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

  Jopling, Michael

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Raison, Timothy

  Dodsworth, Geoffrey

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Rathbone, Tim

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Kilfedder, James

  Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Drayson, Burnaby

  Kimball, Marcus

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

  Durant, Tony

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Elliott, Sir William

  Knox, David

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Emery, Peter

  Lamont, Norman

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Lane, David

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Latham, Michael (Melton)

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Farr, John

  Lawrence, Ivan

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Fell, Anthony

  Lawson, Nigel

  Scott, Nicholas

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Loveridge, John

  Shepherd, Colin

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Luce; Richard

  Shersby, Michael

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Silvester, Fred

  Fox, Marcus

  McCrindle, Robert

  Sims, Roger

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Macfarlane, Nell

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

  Wall, Patrick

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Walters, Dennis

  Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Speed, Keith

  Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)

  Wells, John

  Spicer, Michael (S. Worcester)

  Townsend, Cyril D.

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Sproat, Iain

  Trotter, Neville

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Stainton, Keith

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Wood, Rt Hon Richard

  Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Viggers, Peter

  Younger, Hon George

  Stokes, John

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Wakeham, John

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES

  Tapsell, Peter

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Mr. Anthony Berry and

  Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

  Mr. Michael Roberts.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 122, in page 22, line 28, leave out from "on" to end of line 29 and insert "employees representatives".
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: In page 22, line 28, leave out '
  'the representative of each relevant trade union'
  and insert 'each such representative'.—[Mr. Varley.]
  Subsequent Lords amendments disagreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 128, in page 23, line 14, leave out from "to" to end of line and insert "employee representatives".
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 23, line 14, leave out "a" and insert "the authorised".—[Mr. Varley.]
  Lords Amendment: No. 129, in page 23, line 20, leave out
  "representative of each relevant trade union"
  and insert "employee representatives".
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 23, line 20, leave out
  "the representative of each relevant trade union"
  and insert 'authorised representatives'.—[Mr. Varley.]
  Lords Amendment: No. 130, in page 23, line 25, leave out
  "representatives of relevant trade unions"
  and insert "employee representatives".
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 23, line 25, leave out
  'representatives of relevant trade unions'
  and insert 'authorised representatives'.—[Mr. Varley.]

Clause 25

  RELEASE FROM DUTY TO DISCLOSE INFORMATION TO TRADE UNION
  Lords amendment agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 133, in page 23, line 36, leave out "advisory" and insert "appeal".
  Question put, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment.
  The House divided: Ayes 270, Noes 247.

  Division No. 356.]

  AYES

  [12.30 a.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Atkinson, Norman

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Allaun, Frank

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)

  Boardman, H.

  Anderson, Donald

  Bates, Alt

  Booth, Albert

  Archer, Peter

  Bean, R. E.

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)

  Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

  Ashley, Jack

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Boyden, James (Bish Auck)

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

  Bishop, E. S.

  Bradley, Tom

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)

  Peart, Rt Hon Fred

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

  Pendry, Tom

  Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Perry, Ernest

  Buchanan, Richard

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Phipps, Dr Colin

  Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

  Hunter, Adam

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Campbell, Ian

  Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Canavan, Dennis

  Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Cant, R. B.

  Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

  Radice, Giles

  Carmichael, Neil

  Janner, Greville

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

  Carson, John

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Richardson, Miss Jo

  Carter, Ray

  Jeger, Mrs Lena

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Cartwright, John

  John, Brynmor

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Roderick, Caerwyn

  Clemitson, Ivor

  Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

  Rodgers, George (Chorley)

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

  Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Cohen, Stanley

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Rooker, J. W.

  Coleman, Donald

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Rose, Paul B.

  Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

  Judd, Frank

  Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock)

  Concannon, J. D.

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Rowlands, Ted

  Conlan, Bernard

  Kelley, Richard

  Sandelson, Neville

  Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Corbett, Robin

  Kinnock, Neil

  Selby, Harry

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  Lambie, David

  Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

  Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

  Lamborn, Harry

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Lamond, James

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Cronin, John

  Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

  Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)

  Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony

  Lee, John

  Short, Mrs Renee (Wolv NE)

  Cryer, Bob

  Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

  Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Davidson, Arthur

  Lipton, Marcus

  Sillars, James

  Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

  Litterick, Tom

  Silverman, Julius

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Skinner, Dennis

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

  Loyden, Eddie

  Small, William

  Deakins, Eric

  Luard, Evan

  Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Lyon, Alexander (York)

  Snape, Peter

  Delargy, Hugh

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

  Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Dempsey, James

  McCartney, Hugh

  Stallard, A. W.

  Doig, Peter

  McElhone, Frank

  Stoddart, David

  Dormand, J. D.

  MacFarquhar, Roderick

  Stott, Roger

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  McGuire, Michael (Ince)

  Strang, Gavin

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

  Dunn, James A.

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  Dunnett, Jack

  Maclennan, Robert

  Swain, Thomas

  Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Eadie, Alex

  McNamara, Kevin

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Edelman, Maurice

  Madden, Max

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Edge, Geoff

  Magee, Bryan

  Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

  Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

  Mahon, Simon

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  English, Michael

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.

  Tierney, Sydney

  Ennals, David

  Marks, Kenneth

  Tomlinson, John

  Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)

  Marquand, David

  Tomney, Frank

  Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Torney, Tom

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

  Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Meacher, Michael

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

  Flannery, Martin

  Mikardo, Ian

  Ward, Michael

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Millan, Bruce

  Watkins, David

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Watkinson, John

  Ford, Ben

  Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

  Weetch, Ken

  Forrester, John

  Molloy, William

  Weitzman, David

  Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

  Moonman, Eric

  Wellbeloved, James

  Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  White, Frank R. (Bury)

  Freeson, Reginald

  Morris, Charles R, (Openshaw)

  White, James (Pollok)

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Whitehead, Phillip

  George, Bruce

  Moyle, Roland

  Whitlock, William

  Gilbert, Dr John

  Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Ginsburg, David

  Newens, Stanley

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Gould, Bryan

  Noble, Mike

  Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Oakes, Gordon

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

  Graham, Ted

  Ogden, Eric

  Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Grant, John (Islington C)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Harper, Joseph

  Ovenden, John

  Woof, Robert

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Owen, Dr David

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Hart, Rt Hon Judith

  Padley, Walter

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Hatton, Frank

  Park, George

  Hayman, Mrs Helens

  Parker, John

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Parry, Robert

  Mr. James Hamilton and

  Horam, John

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Miss Margaret Jackson.

  Howell, Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Morgan, Geraint

  Alison, Michael

  Gorst, John

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral

  Arnold, Tom

  Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

  Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

  Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

  Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Awdry, Daniel

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

  Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)

  Bain, Mrs Margaret

  Gray, Hamish

  Mudd, David

  Baker, Kenneth

  Grieve, Percy

  Neave, Airey

  Banks, Robert

  Grist, Ian

  Nelson, Anthony

  Beith, A. J.

  Hall, Sir John

  Neubert, Michael

  Bell, Ronald

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Newton, Tony

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Nott, John

  Biffen, John

  Hannam, John

  Onslow, Cranley

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

  Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

  Blaker, Peter

  Hastings, Stephen

  Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

  Body, Richard

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Pardoe, John

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Hawkins, Paul

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Bottomley, Peter

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Penhaligon, David

  Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Percival, Ian

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

  Henderson, Douglas

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Heseltine, Michael

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Brittan, Leon

  Hicks, Robert

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Brotherton Michael

  Hordern, Peter

  Raison, Timothy

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Hunt, John

  Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Hurd, Douglas

  Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

  Buck, Antony

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Reid, George

  Budgen, Nick

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Burden, F. A.

  James, David

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Carlisle, Mark

  Jenkin, Rt Hn P. (Wanst'd & W'df'd)

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Carr, Rt Hon Robert

  Jessel, Toby

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

  Churchill, W. S.

  Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Jopling, Michael

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Clark, William (Croydon S)

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Sainsbury, Tim

  Cockcroft, John

  Kilfedder, James

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

  Kimball, Marcus

  Scott, Nicholas

  Cope, John

  King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Cordle, John H.

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Cormack, Patrick

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Shepherd, Colin

  Crawford, Douglas

  Knight, Mrs Jill

  Shersby Michael

  Critchley, Julian

  Knox, David

  Silvester, Fred

  Crouch, David

  Lamont, Norman

  Sims, Roger

  Crowder, F. P.

  Lane, David

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

  Latham, Michael (Melton)

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Dodsworth, Geoffrey

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Lawson, Nigel

  Speed, Keith

  Drayson, Burnaby

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Spicer Michael (S Worcester)

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Sproat, Iain

  Durant, Tony

  Loveridge, John

  Stainton, Keith

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Luce, Richard

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

  Elliott, Sir William

  MacCormick, Iain

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Emery, Peter

  McCrindle, Robert

  Stokes, John

  Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Eyre, Reginald

  MacGregor, John

  Tapsell, Peter

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

  Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

  Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

  Farr, John

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Fell, Anthony

  Madel, David

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Finsberg, Geoffrey

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Thomas, Rt. Hon P. (Hendon s)

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Marten, Neil

  Townsend, Cyril D.

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Mates, Michael

  Trotter, Neville

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Mather, Carol

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

  Maude, Angus

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Fox, Marcus

  Mayhew, Ray

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Viggers, Peter

  Fry, Peter

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Wakeham, John

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

  Mills, Peter

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Wall, Patrick

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Walters, Dennis

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Moate, Roger

  Watt, Hamish

  Godber, Rt Hon Joseph

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Watt, Hamish

  Goodhart, Philip

  Moore, John (Croydon C)

  Wells, John

  Goodhew, Victor

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Wood, Rt Hon Richard

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

  Mr. Adam Butler and

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Younger, Hon George

  Mr. Cecil Parkinson.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 135, in page 24, line 1, leave out from "by" to "where" and insert "employee representatives"
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: In page 24, line 1, after "the" insert "authorised".—[Mr. Varley.]
  Lords Amendment: No. 136, in page 24, line 3, leave out from second "to" to "for "in line 4 and insert "employee representatives"
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: page 24, line 3, leave out
  "representatives of relevant trade unions"
  and insert "authorised representatives"—[Mr. Varley.]
  Subsequent Lords amendment disagreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 139, in page 24, line 7, leave out from "to" to "for" in line 8 and insert "employee representatives"
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 24, line 7, after "to" insert "authorised".—[Mr. Varley.]
  Lords Amendment: No. 141, in page 24, line 11, leave out:
  "each relevant trade union's representative"
  and insert "any employee representatives".
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 24, line 11, after "union's" insert "authorised".—[Mr. Varley.]
  Lords Amendment: No. 142, in page 24, line 14 leave out subsections (6) to (9) and insert—
  "(6) The appeal committee shall consider any representations made under subsection (5) above, shall give a direction whether or not all or any part of the information which is the subject of the reference shall be furnished to employee representatives and shall make a report to the Minister giving their findings.
  (7) Where there has been a reference the Minister shall notify:

  (a)the company or companies concerned;

  (b)the employee representatives from such company or companies;

  of the direction of the appeal committee; and in accordance therewith a notice under this subsection shall be treated as requiring the information specified in the direction to be furnished to employee representatives.
  (8)Where there has been no reference to the appeal committee, the Minister may notify the company or companies concerned and each employee representative, at the end of the period specified in his preliminary notice under section 22 above, that this notice is to be treated as final.
  (9)This section will apply with appropriate modification in any case where only part of the information furnished to the Minister falls to be disclosed to employee representatives."
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 24, line 14, leave out subsection (6) to (9) and insert—
  '(6) The advisory committee shall make a report to the Minister after the close of their consideration of the reference, giving their findings of fact and their recommendations, and after considering any representations made under subsection (5) above.
  (7)Where a matter has been referred to the committee, the Minister may make a final decision relating to his proposal only after receiving and considering the committee's report on it.
  (8)Subject to subsection (12) below, where there has been a reference, the Minister shall notify—

  (a)the company or companies concerned;

  (b)the authorised representative of each relevant trade union; and

  (c)the advisory committee,

  of his final decision; and a notice under this

  675
  subsection shall be treated as requiring the information specified in it to be furnished to each such representative within such reasonable time as may be so specified.
  (9) The Minister's notice under subsection (8) above to the company or companies concerned and to the authorised representatives shall state whether or not he accepted the committee's advice.—[Mr. Varley.]
  Subsequent Lords amendment disagreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 145, in page 24, line 35, leave out from "and" to "at" and insert "employee representatives".
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 24, line 35, after 'union's' insert 'authorised'.—[Mr. Varley.]
  Lords Amendment: No. 147, in page 24, line 41, leave out from second "to" to end of line 42 and insert "employee representatives".
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 24, line 41, leave out 'a' and insert 'the authorised'.—[Mr. Varley.]
  Subsequent Lords amendment disagreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 149; in page 24, line 42, at end insert
  "within such reasonable time as may be specified".
  Amendment to the Lords amendment made: in line 42, leave out 'so specified' and insert
  'specified in the notice under subsection (10) above'.—[Mr. Varley.]
  Lords amendment, as amended, agreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 151, in page 25, line 1, leave out subsections (12) to (16).
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendments made to the words so restored to the Bill:
  In page 25, line 11, at end insert:
  'within such reasonable time as may be specified in the order'.
  In page 25, line 11, at end insert—
  '(12A) An order under subsection (12) above shall be laid before Parliament after being made'.
  In page 25, line 13, leave out 'until' and insert 'if before'.
  In page 25, line 15, at end insert:
  'either House resolves that an Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that it be annulled.
  (13A) If no such resolution is passed by either House, the order shall come into effect at the end of the said period.
  (13B) If such a resolution is passed by either House, Her Majesty may by Order in Council revoke the order. '.
  In page 25, line 15, leave out subsection (14).
  In page 25, line 20, leave out ' either House is ' and insert ' both Houses are '.—[Mr. Varley]

Clause 26

  CONFIDENTIALITY
  Lords amendment disagreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 153; in page 26, line 3, leave out from "to" to "under" in line 4 and insert "employee representatives".
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 26, line 3, leave out
  'the representative of each relevant trade union'
  and insert 'authorised representatives'.—[Mr. Varley.]

Clause 30

  INTERPRETATION
  Lords Amendment: No. 170, in page 28, leave out from beginning of line 40 to end of line 4 on page 29.
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 20, line 31, at end insert—
  '"relevant trade union" means an independent trade union, as defined in section 30(1) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974, which the company or companies concerned recognise for the purpose of negotiations about one or more of the matters specified in section 29(1) of that Act in relation to persons employed in the relevant undertaking, or as to which the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service has made a recommendation for such recognition under the Employment Protection Act 1975 which is operative within the meaning of section 15 of that Act; '.—[Mr. Varley.]
  Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to.—[Special Entry.]

Schedule 5

  ADVISORY COMMITTEES
  Lords amendments disagreed to.
  Lords Amendment: No. 193, in page 44, line 7, leave out from "by" to "that" and insert "employee representatives".
  Question, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment, put and agreed to.
  Amendment made to the Bill in lieu thereof: in page 44, line 7, after 'a', insert ' the authorised representative of'.—[Mr. Varley.]
  Subsequent Lords amendments disagreed to.
  Remaining Lords amendments agreed to.
  Committee appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to certain of their amendments to the Bill: Mr. Joseph Harper, Mr. Michael Heseltine, Mr. Gerald Kaufman, Mr. Tom King and Mr. Eric G. Varley.
  Three to be the quorum.—[Mr. Eric G. Varley.]
  To withdraw immediately.
  Reasons for disagreeing to certain of the Lords amendments reported, and
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  agreed to; to be communicated to the Lords.

  ADJOURNMENT
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dormand.]

  THE UNIFICATION CHURCH
  12.46 a.m.
  Mr. Paul B. Rose: There are currently operating in this country a number of bogus and bizarre bodies which purport to be religious cults. They benefit from the laxity of the law relating to charities. Among them, and perhaps the most pernicious, is the body commonly known as the Unification Church, with its fraudulent fund raising, its dubious medical and psychological claims, its rather sinister political connections and the dangers which it holds in relation to the health of potential or actual recruits.
  To quote a Mr. Christopher Yapp, who spoke to me today on the telephone, having attended one of its courses in the United States, it uses the emotionally deprived and disturbed converts as "slave labour", to quote his words, at the base of what is a £6 million pyramid. At the head of that pyramid stands a man who is claimed as the new Messiah, a Korean multi-millionaire, who left his land under something of a cloud.
  Its sophisticated brainwashing techniques, its efforts to split youngsters from their families and to give up their worldly goods are equally a danger to health and are a matter of concern. The whole set-up constitutes a criminal conspiracy, only the fringes of which have been dealt with by convictions in court.
  Walking along, say, North Audley Street, or New Street in Birmingham, or in Cambridge or in Newquay, a man may well be accosted by youngsters selling candles and claiming that the money is going to charity or to build homes for drug addicts or medical centres in under-developed countries. One such

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  candle I have at my own home. It was sold on my doorstep, and the person selling it said that the money was going to charity and handed over a leaflet asking for a donation to charity.
  Among other things, this organisation has an associated limited company called United Family Enterprises Ltd. The directors of that company are Messrs. Hertzer, Miller, Thomas, and the organiser, Mr. Orme, and they are about as hard to interview as they are free with their threats of libel proceedings against those who seek to expose them and tell the truth about this organisation.
  The organisation's activities have prompted certain responses, and in particular a response from a prominent and eminent theologian, Professor Lambe, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. Professor Lambe circulated to all theological faculties a warning from a student who took advantage of one of the organisation's all-expenses paid trips to the United States for a six-week stay.
  Incidentally, the organisation masquerades under at least seven names—the International Cultural Foundation, the Unification Church, the Unified Family, the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, One World Crusade, God's Light Infantry and the International Federation for Victory over Communism. It not only masquerades under various names but uses sinister techniques. A description of those techniques has been given in the letter to which I referred by a Mr. Low, who writes:
  "The six week course in America is a fierce exercise in total indoctrination. The object of this is to reduce the victim to a mental condition in which he can only follow completely the orders of the organisation and propagate their work. Needless to say, membership is total and encourages financial commitment of a high order, and in most cases everything is handed over. I have met many parents recently who have lost children to this group, for they are notorious destroyers of families. 'I he reason for this is that in the ' New Unified Family', the neophyte's former family remains in the world of sin and should only be contacted with a view to conversion."
  Examples of the dangerous humbug one reads about have implications for my hon. Friend. It is clear that Mr. Moon demands total obedience from his fol-
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  lowers, including the right to control their fives and to choose their marriage partners, but he reserves the right, according to certain documents, to have relations with an entourage of his own female initiates. In one of his speeches he said:
  "When you really love your car and become one with it, even at the point of danger others cannot collide with you."
  I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport would have something to say about that.
  One of the sales gimmicks that my hon. Friend will be concerned with, which features prominently in the account of the United Family Enterprises, is ginseng tea. One church brochure that was withdrawn from circulation but which I have seen—it was investigated by the advertising standards authority—claimed that the tea could be used "against cancer". Incidentally, it still claims properties which relieve the symptoms of about 20 different maladies.
  The cult's political connection with various Fascist and Nazi-type organisations, particularly in Japan and South-East Asia, is a matter which will concern many hon. Members. It is interesting to know that Mr. Orme, the organiser, in opening the latest brain-washing centre at Lancaster Gate on 1st August, made a highly political speech which was not far out of line from the remarks of Mr. Sun Myung Moon, who not long ago told his followers in a pamphlet entitled "Answer to Watergate":
  "It is your duty to love Richard Nixon. God has chosen Richard Nixon to be President of the United States."
  On a more serious note, I have some heart-rending letters and newspaper exposes. A great deal is owed to the magazine Time Out for information about the way in which young people are turned away from their families. At Stanton Fitzwarren, the cult's estate, local residents are particularly annoyed, and claim that people work with no pay or pocket money and that they are separated from their parents. They are troubled by parents coming to look for their children. In one case a letter from a husband tells of his search for his wife who had joined the cult. A local medical practitioner in another letter complains about the cult's claims in respect of ginseng tea and about

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  its brainwashing techniques. Another complains that his wife is now missing and is regarded as a missing person because she cannot be contacted.
  This breaking up of families is one of the matters with which my hon Friend will, I am sure, be concerned. In a thesis recently produced at the University of Durham it was concluded in a most objective study that in many ways the cult was reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan and of the Cagoule in France. It went on to point out that cohabitation with marriage partners was permissible only for those couples whose weddings had received Moon's personal blessing since 1960.
  This is the kind of mumbo-jumbo with which we are dealing. One letter from Oxford asks that the cult's status as a charity be looked into, and I would ask, as the letter does, for a police investigation as a result of the experiences of that person and many others during their association with the cult, not least their periods of indoctrination at seminars in the United States.
  Perhaps the most poignant example of the distress that has been caused comes in a letter from which I quote without referring to names. A father writes:
  "It had proved impossible to make contact with our daughter in Cambridge. She remained dumb to our communications…because she felt that she had to devote herself entirely to the service of God via the Unification Church."
  She was brought home. The father goes on to say that for three days she was in a state of shock, crying almost incessantly. She had a nervous rash on her face and an infection of the ear. Her father said that she looked like a ghost. She had been told that:
  "The second Christ was already on earth in the shape of Mr. Moon."
  The cult's members bow down deeply to Mr. Moon's picture three times a day and pray to him. They get up every Sunday morning at 5 o'clock to give "The Pledge". They are told that Mr. Moon has succeeded where Christ failed. The letter goes on in this way. Members are discouraged from having, or forbidden to have, any contact with their parents because they are regarded as agents of Satan. Every time before entering the house where they lived they have to throw salt, blessed by the leader, over their left shoulder and say, "Subjugate,
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  subjugate, subjugate, Satan." They perform a continuous three-day fast at the end of every month. Most of them are expected to live on four hours' sleep or even less. They are told that that is the best cure for insomnia. It is one of the cult's brainwashing techniques that it keeps people in a state of sleeplessness for long periods while preaching to them from 6 a.m. to 12. That is possibly even a little worse than this House.
  After a series of convictions in New-quay for street-collecting offences the bank paying-in book was confiscated. It revealed some rather interesting things. Among other things it revealed that in six weeks five collectors had collected £6,000. A sum of £12,000 had been sent to Korea. The financial aspects of the organisation are, I realise, more for my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and the Home Secretary. They are a mystery. The conviction of minor pawns is no substitute for action on what is a criminal conspiracy to defraud.
  The interrelation of the United Family Enterprises organisation as a business organisation with what purports to be a religious charity needs detailed investigation. One would want to know how, according to one letter, a typewritten certificate could be produced by a member of the Church purporting to be an authority for collection of money for the Unification Church on 3rd July 1974. In that case my correspondent was told the story that the money was to help people who were disturbed and unable to find their place in society.
  Mr. Geoffrey Stewart-Smith, the former Member for Belper, perhaps one of the most fervant anti-Communist Members in the last Parliament, wrote a letter to me in which he referred to the cult, after his experience, as a "blasphemous bogus religion", and said:
  "the anti-Communism which they boast about is pure drivel, and they collaborate with an international anti-Semitic organisation called the World Anti-Communist League."
  It certainly is known that it has strong links with various racist organisations all over the world, most particularly with organisations such as the Black Dragon Society and others in Japan.
  Mr. Moon controls a £6 million empire in South Korea which includes the manufacture or production of ginseng tea,

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  titanium and pharmaceutical products and even small arms. Large estates are owned in the United States worth £6·8 million. They have been bought by the so-called Moonies—some of us might term them loonies—through their street collections and through getting people to sign away their money, goods and inheritances when they are converted. It is of that sort of activity in this country of which I complain particularly as well.
  Although it purports to be a spiritual organisation, it is not long since 3,000 people at the Washington Hilton were given a free steak dinner, because nothing is too lavish for the organisation to influence those who they believe may see the cult as a useful political weapon. It has its Madison Square rallies that are often echoes of Nuremberg. A glance at the programme and its so-called standards in its indoctrination seminars is equally interesting. My hon. Friend has seen all these documents. The persons attending are virtual prisoners. They are refused permission to go out of the premises even to go to church. No. 6 standard, as it is called, says, for example, that
  "Students may not leave the property during free time or without authorised permission."
  The programme sponsored by Mr. Denis Orme in England was described by Mr. Ray Kemp, a 22-year-old student, in the Sunday People on 2nd December 1973. He said that students
  "find themselves imprisoned by barbed wire and locked gates, isolated from the world, unable to leave and harangued from 6 a.m. to midnight to accept Moon's teachings."
  Another student, Bob Parkinson, an Oxford architecture student, said that the cult was like the beginning of a Nazi Party with strong spiritual undertones.
  Mr. Moon is financed basically from the sale of literature and candles, and donations which are largely obtained illegally. Some of the money is exported from this country. Nevertheless, enough is left to run 15 centres in this country, a new one recently having opened. The organiser was living in an opulent detached house—3, Barn Hill, Wembley—which was recently put up for sale, Mr. Orme having now left for more salubrious surroundings.
  The prosecuting solicitor at Newquay, in a series of cases involving members of the cult, said:
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  "The sect's collections were a bit of a con, and there was more moonshine than sunshine about it. The destination of this money is shrouded in mystery. The collections broke every rule—no permits, no collection boxes, no check on the money raised. World contributions exceeded £6 million last year."
  Mr. Orme, at these proceedings, threatened the prosecuting solicitor with libel, as such people always do, and said at the proceedings that Mr. Moon could snap his fingers and charter a jumbo jet. He admitted that there were 60 full-time fund raisers in this country.
  It has been reported that one young American girl who left the Unification Church said that she was earning $100 a day simply by begging from passers-by, selling them candles, flowers and peanuts, according to the Guardian Weekly of 15th March 1975. Escapees from the sect's United States headquarters frequently seek help from nearby housing estates. Others march around and chant in a military fashion. In Britain it is not strong enough to do that, but I hope that my hon. Friend will ensure that they never become that strong.
  In a letter dated 23rd June this year the Home Secretary expressed distress at the breaking up of families by the cult. The Director of Public Prosecutions is still considering a large file of documents I have sent along with further informamation sent from time to time. But it is lamentable that no action has been taken other than against the fringe—the pawns in the game. It needs more than my personal investigations and the voluminous files I have built up over the years. It needs Government and police action in order to extinguish the unlawful behaviour of this cult, and its harmful effects on young people in particular and on society in general. It also needs, for the purposes of my hon. Friend's reply tonight, action against the hazards to health involved in the employment of many of its techniques.
  1.7 a.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Meacher): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) for raising this matter tonight. He has clearly expended a great deal of time and trouble to elucidate the facts. He has told an extraordinary story, both well-documented and highly disturbing,

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  and has drawn out the worrying implications both comprehensively and clearly.
  My hon. Friend has outlined the origins of the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, or the Unification Church, or the United Family, to mention only three of the seven titles my hon. Friend gave it. Its teachings are rather more difficult to follow. I understand that Mr. Sam Myung Moon wrote what has in effect become the bible of the movement in 1954. The Divine Principle, as the book is called, contains a certain amount of rewriting of Old and New Testament stories and a good deal of the sort of mysticism which attaches the most profound meanings to magic numbers. It is difficult to see how this book, and the teachings based on it, can possibly justify a claim to be associated in any way with Christianity, since it is claimed, in effect, that Christ failed in his mission on earth, and Mr. Moon has been chosen to complete that mission.
  To be quite fair to Mr. Moon, I believe he has not personally advanced that claim. He has merely said that the Lord of the Second Advent will have been born soon after the end of World War I, in a country in the East which is divided into two sections, suffering "unmerited persecution", and where Christianity is strong but where other Oriental religions are deeply rooted. I should add that Mr. Moon was born in Korea in 1920 which fits that definition well. He has also said that God has been in communion with him and has revealed His plan for the perfection of mankind and the final overthrow of Satan and all his works. It is Mr. Moon's followers who, I understand, have put the magical numbers of two and two together, so to speak, and concluded that Mr. Moon is the Lord of the Second Advent; and he has not contradicted this view.
  Many people may find it difficult to understand how a movement professing the beliefs enunciated in "The Divine Principle" can have any appeal whatever to Christians, particularly Christians belonging to Western Churches. In fact, I understand that about half the world membership of the Unification Church live in Korea, where the church was founded. However, the extremely limited
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  appeal of the church's basic doctrines is supplemented in the various countries to which the church has spread by ideas and arguments designed to be popular in each. In the words of one commentator,
  "the principles amount to an ellegedly commonsensical defence of institutions that have long enjoyed traditional authority in Britain. Thus, members are active campaigners for the restoration of the death penalty for the murder of policemen, on unequivocal guarantee that policemen shall not use guns, the eradication of pornography, firmer control over trade unions, the suppression of allegedly Marxist influence in the mass-media, the restoration of unity to Ireland as a Christian nation, the expulsion of all Communist agents from Britain, the ridicule of such 'pseudo experts' as academic psychologists, sociologists and criminologists, and the adulation of such national hereos as Lord Nelson and Sir Winston Churchill. In short, defence of the 'British Way of Life', 'the British heritage' and 'Britain's great traditions' is the pivotal point of the group's ideology."
  Hon. Members may find it difficult to reconcile such an ideology with the idea of a "Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity ". In addition, the literature of the movement contains a good deal of entirely unexceptionable sentiments to which we can all subscribe; and the uncritical reader may tend to think that because he agrees with these sentiments he agrees with the movement as a whole.
  One whom most people would still regard as a greater authority than Mr. Moon said:
  "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves…By their fruits ye shall know them."
  The fruits of the Unification Church are not as yet abundant, at any rate in this country. A few young people have been induced to leave their homes, give up their work or their studies, and beg in the streets or sell candles, flowers and ginseng tea, a product of one of Mr. Moon's companies. A very few older people have associated themselves with the movement, and some of these have given money and property to the church. Quite substantial sums of money have been remitted to Korea: what effect this has had on the Korean members of the church is not clear, but Mr. Moon has undoubtedly prospered.
  It could be argued that all this has very little to do with my Department of with the Government. My hon. Friend

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  spoke of a criminal conspiracy to defraud, and, as he indicated, these are specifically matters for my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. Anyone is entitled to be deluded into giving his time, effort and property to a movement which is perfectly legal. Although there have been certain irregularities and breaches of the law—for example, on the part of some of the young collectors, and in the extravagant and even illegal claims for the virtues of ginseng tea—these matters have been dealt with and do not justify attacks on the Unification Church itself.
  My hon. Friend emphasised the health hazards involved in the techniques employed by the church, but I am bound to say that no evidence of such hazards has so far been brought to the attention of my Department which would justify action under the present law.
  My hon. Friend will recall that in April last, in reply to a Question he put down, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security invited him to send the Department any evidence in his possession about the harmful effects in question, and I willingly repeat that invitation if my hon. Friend has any evidence which would justify action under the present law.
  In a much wider sense, however, the matters to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention may properly be regarded as concerning us all. In a truly healthy society there is no place for "churches" which degrade their members and enrich their founders.
  The Unification Church has at present very few adherents in this country—
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  though my hon. Friend seemed to suggest that the numbers may be rather greater—but it is only one of many organisations which have sprung up in recent years and have attracted followers, many among the best and most idealistic of our young people.
  These organisations are, generally speaking, careful to avoid any illegal activities, since clashes with the law would interfere with their primary purpose of money-making. Their teachings are designed to attract those who for any reason are discontented or disappointed, and they are always ready to modify or drop altogether any tenets or practices which might reduce their financial appeal. Public opinion, together with those organisations which are traditionally responsible for moulding and influencing it, must accept primary responsibility for combating these cults.
  There are limits, which we should all wish to recognise, to the extent to which it might be desirable for the House or the Government to intervene in the affairs of such cults so long as there is no suggestion that the law is infringed or is truly inadequate to deal with grave scandals and abuses. If there are such suggestions, they are in the first instance for the police, as I believe my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Solicitor-General have explained to my hon. Friend. Nevertheless, my Department—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Wednesday evening, 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 sixteen minutes past One o'clock.