HC Deb 24 March 1976 vol 908 cc412-20

3.58 p.m.

Mr. Bob Cryer (Keighley)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the election of the members of the boards of nationalised industries. The modest Bill seeks to carry out part of our manifesto pledge to implement industrial democracy and, in particular, Clause Four of the constitution of the Labour Party, which was adopted in 1918 to ensure that the means, distribution and exchange of production were under the most popular system of administration.

We have failed so far to implement fully both the letter and spirit of Clause Four in that we have not achieved a system of administration in the nationalised industries which has given the workpeople in those industries any impression that part of nationalisation is to give workpeople an involvement in control. Instead, over the years we have built up a tight, oligarchic rule drawn from an elite group which in general terms in no way represents the workpeople. How can the worker on the shop floor identify, for example, with Sir Richard Dobson, the newly-appointed Chairman of British Leyland? Departing from British American Tobacco with a goodbye present of £80,000, and prior to this having had a salary increase of £20,000, to make his total salary £58,000, he is now to work part-time for a public industry for £22,500.

There is no information open to hon. Members as to the method of Sir Richard Dobson's appointment, his hours of work or even whether he now knows where the factories are in the group. That is hardly an example to inspire the workers with democratic fervour. My Bill will be a first step to rectifying this dispensation of patronage and ensuring that the method of selection and appointment is clear and open.

An examination of some of the nationalised boards indicates how unsatisfactory the position has become. They are littered with retired civil servants and captains of industry who, no doubt, share in some measure Sir Richard Dobson's anti-nationalisation views. The Chairman of the British Steel Corporation, Sir Monty Finniston, receives £27,750 a year. He is assisted by six full-time members, who draw between £16,000 and £22,500, and six part-time members, who draw from £1,000 to £4,000 each. The part-time members include the Dean of Nuffield College, Oxford, the Chairman of the Weir Group of Companies and a retired Permanent Secretary to the former Ministry of Housing.

The British Transport Docks Board, which owns and operates 19 active ports, apparently manages with a part-time chairman, who naturally, because of his limited availability, receives the reduced rate of £10,283 a year. In the same incredible way the British Airports Authority, which owns and operates seven major airports, has a part-time chairman on £9,000 a year. The British Railways Board has a full-time chairman, who will shortly leave office, and my Bill, if given Government support, could well provide the means for obtaining a replacement democratically instead of autocratically.

Sir Richard Marsh, who owes his present position to electoral success in the past, rubs along on £23,100. With five full-time members, the Board is supplemented by part-timers who pick up between £1,000 and £3,000 apiece. They include the Chairman of Pilkingtons, the glassmakers, who apparently can spare the time, a retired civil servant, who is presumably supplementing his meagre pension, and Lord Taylor of Gryfe. Lord Taylor of Gryfe supplements his part-time work on the British Railways Board with more moonlighting as Chairman of the Forestry Commission, and as part-time Chairman he receives a pittance of £6,200 a year. It is to be hoped that he receives suitable incomes from membership of the boards of Scottish Television Limited, bankers Whiteaway Laidlaw and Co., Friends Provident and Century Group and Scottish Metropolitan Co. Limited, to enable him to make ends meet. He is not untypical of some appointees to nationalised boards.

From what I have said so far, it will be clear that many board members are quite unable to devote their time to the interests of the nationalised industries. They give no lead to the workpeople either in philosophy, style of life or example. We need leaders in the publicly-owned industries who are not there merely because the money is good and they have the approval of a Minister. They should be there because they believe in public ownership and in the democratic control of industry. The only way that that can be achieved is if they have a sense of responsibility to the workers by being elected by them.

My Bill proposes that nominations be made by both the Government and the workers for the chairmen and members of the boards. It would not be true to suggest that only the workers' nominees would be elected. There has been an example recently in Coventry where the former manager of Jaguar Cars, by his example and by his concern for the workers, and not solely concern for production, was able to win the workers' esteem and electoral support. If my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson) had been a Government nominee, he would have had a good basis of support. The Bill would require that the two Government nominees with most votes served on a board in order to prevent the growth of narrow syndicalism and to enable the board to receive a broader picture of the needs of the nation as a whole as opposed to a single industry.

The electorate would be the full-time workpeople of the industry, and elections would normally be held every five years. But the Bill would include provision for variations of this pattern by regulation to meet the needs of special situations. I anticipate that voting would be at the work-place, by secret ballot in the well-tried manner. Voting at a work-place also involves discussion of the policies and personalities involved and is more practical and cheaper than a postal ballot, when the media might be able to exercise excessive influence.

Regulations made under the Bill would provide for the limiting of expenditure by candidates in the election documents, but the cost of the elections would be borne by the industry itself. On the other hand, since my Bill would provide a new and radical method of obtaining the leadership of these industries, new criteria would operate. The incentive would no longer be solely financial with the rules of the executive market place prevailing, with lavishly paid people seeking ever-increasing payments which places them on a salary level way beyond the wildest dreams of the average worker. People will come forward who want to serve their fellow men, people who seek a good but not outlandish salary, people who want to see publicly-owned industries work both in financial and in Socialist terms. The lavish salaries currently paid would therefore disappear. Provision would also be made for report-back meetings with workpeople.

To those in this elected assembly who say that the system would not work, I say that they should give democracy a try. A number of vacancies are arising on the various nationalised boards and it seems an opportune time to implement my Bill. To those who say that talent exists only within a small group of capitalists and top civil servants, and that it is terribly difficult to find people to serve on these boards, I say that they have the wrong attitude. They are looking only within a tiny group of people who demand large salaries and are remote from the ordinary people. The evidence is, in any case, against them. The shop stewards of Chrysler brought to the House a plan of how the company could be turned into a viable concern with emphasis on a switch to products for the Third World. Lucas Aerospace shop stewards have brought schemes for switching production from armaments to production for peaceful purposes. British Aircraft Corporation shop stewards have produced a plan for the democratic control of their organisation. The talent is there if only we bother to look.

Technical knowledge and experience would continue to be available from the full-time officers of the corporations in the same way as such advice is available to local authorities which are composed of elected representatives. The responsibility of a board would remain a corporate one. Certainly the vast salaries currently being paid never seem to result in individual members of boards accepting the responsibilities that those salaries allegedly represent. Local councillors have responsibility for the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds, yet the working men and women who are elected seek no large salaries for that responsibility.

The wider responsibilities of the elected boards would reduce the possibility of such grave errors as the Stokermatic affair, which still burns brightly at the National Coal Board, and the purchase of steel plants at £42 million from GKN at Brymbo and Cardiff, the investment of £4 million of taxpayers' money and the reselling of the plant back to GKN for £20 million by the board of British Steel which resulted in a loss of £26 million. Elected representatives would guard the public interest more zealously than has often been the case in the past.

There is a long tradition of industrial democracy in the trade union and Labour movements. At the beginning of the century the miners' leader, A. J. Cook, produced a plan for the coal industry called "Miners—The Next Step", which involved the complete democratic control of the pits. My Bill would not provide for that sort of structure, but at least it would be a good start and an indication that the Government mean what they say when they talk of industrial democracy.

The newly-elected boards would enter into negotiations for the evolving of democracy that would ensure that workers in the nationalised industries were involved in the decision-making affecting them. We have for too long held out to working people the prospect of a changing society. For too long we have retained structures that are based on the old bosses who, in many cases, leapt joyfully back into the cushy jobs they held under private ownership. We succeeded in changing only the sign over the door.

Industrial democracy is not a catch-phrase for the rank and file. It must apply to all, including the leadership. My Bill will give an opportunity to apply democracy to the nationalised industries. It is a small start but it is one that we should make, and I hope that the House will give its overwhelming approval to the Bill.

4.9 p.m.

Mr. Teddy Taylor (Glasgow, Cathcart) rose—

Mr. Speaker

Is the hon. Gentleman rising to oppose the Bill?

Mr. Taylor

Most certainly, Mr. Speaker.

I hope that the House will reject this foolish Bill. Although we can understand the frustration felt by the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) and his hon. Friends about the fact that the Government pay no attention to their outlandish views on industrial democracy, we do not want to add to the nation's problems by inflicting this solution on our State-owned industries.

There was one word which the hon. Member for Keighley never mentioned in his speech—"consumer". He talked about the need for workers being adequately represented, democracy for the workers and a change in the system, but he said not a word about the consumer. If there is anyone who needs protection against exploitation from the State-owned industries it is the consumer, who is sick and tired of nationalisation, which always means higher prices, fewer jobs and poorer services. If the hon. Gentleman wants to help the State-owned industries, he should look at them from the point of view of consumers, who are sick and tired of the prices now being charged and the amount they have to pay through their taxes for the extension of State control.

The hon. Gentleman wishes to extend democracy. The House should bear in mind the danger that we now face of bringing democracy into total disrepute because of a superfluity of elections. We are to have elections for the European Parliament, a Scottish Assembly and regional councils and now, it appears, for the boards of nationalised industries as well.

The hon. Gentleman has hit upon an important point. In two recent Bills the Government have committed themselves to industrial democracy without defining precisely what they mean. If the hon.

Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends do what trade union leaders have done recently and carefully examine industrial democracy, I am sure they will share the declining enthusiasm in the trade union movement for the principle of industrial democracy. The more one studies industrial domocracy, the more one realises that it could undermine the whole structure and basis of the trade union movement.

The hon. Gentleman has been scathing in his criticism of certain heads of the State-owned industries. It is interesting that those whom he attacked most vigorously, such as Sir Monty Finniston, are the products of working-class homes who have tried their best to help those industries, in spite of a Socialist Government. The Peers whom he criticised are Socialists, who are voting for Socialism at the same time as they hold the jobs he mentioned.

There are many things wrong with our State-owned industries which should be put right, but the hon. Gentleman's contribution has been further to emphasise the basic split in the Labour Party between the Social Democrats and the neo-Marxists. The Government should be trying to reorganise the State-owned industries to ensure proper protection for the consumer. Let us bring forward Bills to help the consumer, not to extend extreme Left-wing Socialism.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business):—

The House divided: Ayes 133, Noes 144.

Division No. 97.] AYES [4.14 p.m.
Abse, Leo Colquhoun, Ms Maureen Fitch, Alan (Wigan)
Allaun, Frank Cook, Robin F. (Edin C) Flannery, Martin
Ashley, Jack Corbett, Robin Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Ashton, Joe Cox, Thomas (Tooting) Forrester, John
Bagier, Gordon A. T. Crawford, Douglas Freud, Clement
Bain, Mrs Margaret Crawshaw, Richard Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich) Cryer, Bob Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Bates, Alf Dean, Joseph (Leeds West) George, Bruce
Bean, R. E. Delargy, Hugh Gould, Bryan
Beith, A. J. Dempsey, James Grant, George (Morpeth)
Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N) Dunn, James A. Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Bidwell, Sydney Edge, Geoff Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE) Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Bradley, Tom Ellis, john (Brigg & Scun Hart, Rt Hon Judith
Buchan, Norman English, Michael Heffer, Eric S.
Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & p) Evans, Fred (Caerphilly) Henderson, Douglas
Clemitson, Ivor Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen) Horam, John
Cocks, Michael (Bristol S) Evans, loan (Aberdare) Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)
Cohen, Stanley Ewing, Harry (Stirling) Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Coleman, Donald Fernyhough, Rt Hon E. Hunter, Adam
Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford) Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N) Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)
Janner, Greville Molloy, William Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)
Jeger, Mrs Lena Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe) Thompson, George
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney) Newens, Stanley Thorne, Stan (Preston South)
Johnson, Walter (Derby S) Noble, Mike Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)
Johnston, Russell (Inverness) Oakes, Gordon Tinn, James
Jones, Dan (Burnley) Ovenden, John Torney, Tom
Kelley, Richard Pardoe, John Tuck, Raphael
Kilroy-Silk, Robert Perry, Ernest Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)
Lambie, David Richardson, Miss Jo Walker, Terry (Kingswood)
Lamborn, Harry Rodgers, George (Chorley) Ward, Michael
Lamond, James Rooker, J. W. Watkins, David
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle) Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight) Watkinson, John
Lipton, Marcus Sedgemore, Brian Weetch, Ken
Loyden, Eddie Selby, Harry Welsh, Andrew
Luard, Evan Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South) White, Frank R. (Bury)
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson Skinner, Dennis Whitlock, William
McElhone, Frank Smith, Cyril (Rochdale) Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)
Mackintosh, John p. Snape, Peter Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C) Spearing, Nigel Wise, Mrs Audrey
Madden, Max Spriggs, Leslie Young, David (Bolton E)
Mahon, Simon Stallard, A. W.
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole) Steel, David (Roxburgh) TELLERS FOR THE AYES
Maynard, Miss Joan Stewart, Donald (Western Isles) Mr. Dennis Canavan and
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham) Mr. Russell Kerr
Mikardo, Ian Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley
NOES
Adley, Robert Grylls, Michael Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)
Aitken, Jonathan Hall-Davis, A. G. F. Mudd, David
Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne) Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury) Neave, Airey
Baker, Kenneth Hampson, Dr Keith Nelson, Anthony
Banks, Robert Hannam, John Neubert, Michael
Bell, Ronald Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss Normanton, Tom
Berry, Hon Anthony Hastings, Stephen Onslow, Cranley
Biggs-Davison, John Higgins, Terence L. Oppenheim, Mrs Sally
Blaker, Peter Holland, Philip Page, John (Harrow West)
Body, Richard Hordern, Peter Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)
Boscawen, Hon Robert Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Parkinson, Cecil
Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown) Howell, David (Guildford) Pattie, Geoffrey
Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent) Hurd, Douglas Percival, Ian
Braine, Sir Bernard Hutchison, Michael Clark Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch
Brocklebank-Fowler, C. James, David Price, David (Eastleigh)
Brotherton, Michael Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd & W'df'd) Pym, Rt Hon Francis
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath) Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead) Raison, Timothy
Buchanan-Smith, Alick Jones, Arthur (Daventry) Rees-Davies, W. R.
Budgen, Nick Jopling, Michael Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)
Burden, F. A. Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith Rifkind, Malcolm
Butler, Adam (Bosworth) Kershaw, Anthony Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)
Chalker, Mrs Lynda Kimball, Marcus Royle, Sir Anthony
Clegg, Walter King, Tom (Bridgwater) Scott-Hopkins, James
Cooke, Robert (Bristol W) Kirk, Sir Peter Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)
Cope, John Kitson, Sir Timothy Shepherd, Colin
Corrie, John Knox, David Sims, Roger
Costain, A. P. Lane, David Sinclair, Sir George
Dodsworth, Geoffrey Langford-Holt, Sir John Skeet, T. H. H.
Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James Latham, Michael (Melton) Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)
Drayson, Burnaby Lawrence, Ivan Stanbrook, Ivor
Durant, Tony Le Marchant, Spencer Stanley, John
Dykes, Hugh Lester, Jim (Beeston) Stradling Thomas, J.
Eden, Rt Hon Sir John Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland) Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke) Lloyd, Ian Tebbit, Norman
Elliott, Sir William Luce, Richard Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret
Eyre, Reginald Macfarlane, Neil Walder, David (Clitheroe)
Fairgrieve, Russell Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham) Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)
Finsberg, Geoffrey Marten, Neil Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles Mates, Michael Wall, Patrick
Fookes, Miss Janet Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald Warren, Kenneth
Weatherill, Bernard
Forman, Nigel Mawby, Ray Whitelaw, Rt Hon William
Fry, Peter Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin Wiggin, Jerry
Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife) Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove) Winterton, Nicholas
Goodhart, Philip Molyneaux, James Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)
Goodhew, Victor Monro, Hector Younger, Hon George
Gow, Ian (Eastbourne) Montgomery, Fergus
Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry) Morgan, Geraint TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Gray, Hamish Morris, Michael (Northampton S) Mr. Iain Sproat and
Grist, Ian Morrison, Charles (Devizes) Mr. Patrick Cormack.

Question accordingly negatived.