RESTRICTIONS ON GENERAL DUTY UNDER S. 17 (Hansard, 29 October 1975)

§ Mr. John Fraser

I beg to move, That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said amendment. 1650 The reason for asking the House to disagree is that the amendment weakens the right of union representatives to be given information, because an employer would no longer have to show that the disclosure of a piece of information would actually cause substantial injury, but merely that it would be likely to do so.

As the Bill was drafted, if an employer considers that disclosure would cause substantial injury to the undertaking he 1651 may refuse to give the relevant information to the representative of the trade union. The union can then go to the Central Arbitration Committee, which will have to determine whether or not disclosure would cause substantial injury.

The amendment, however, would require the CAC to form a judgment about the probability of a certain event taking place, which might depend on secondary events quite out of control of both the employer and the union. This makes the CAC's task much more difficult and increases the number of cases where employers will be able to refuse passing information to unions.

We have now reached the curious situation of praying in aid the Industrial Relations Act 1971, but I will succumb to the temptation and say that the wording we have used here is not substantially different from the disclosure wording used in the 1971 Act. Perhaps that is one of its few merits. I hope that the House will accept the precedent and agree to disagree with the Lords.

§ Mr. Hayhoe

As time goes by the merits of the 1971 Act will be more evident to people. It used to be quoted by Labour Members in terms of pure horror, but time has had a mellowing influence and it is now quoted as a veritable paragon for legislation on certain matters.

On this issue the words in the current legislation have been varied a little. On Report, the words "cause substantial injury" were substituted for "seriously prejudice". A powerful case has been made that the words "be likely to" are more likely to offer protection. One accepts, as the Minister says, that these words will create some barriers in the way of divulging information, but without them substantial injury might be caused. A balance has to be struck here between disclosure and injury which might put people's jobs at risk.

We have debated this matter a number of times and we feel that the Lords are right. However, we are running on a tight timetable. The interventions of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) on the last amendment did not help. It might, therefore, be a gesture if we did not divide on this point. That 1652 does not mean that we accept the Government's argument. One of our problems is that the Government have steamrollered and dragooned so much legislation through the House that we cannot debate all these matters as they should be debated.