HC Deb 07 February 1978 vol 943 cc1400-17
The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Les Huckfield)

I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 3, line 14, leave out from "and" to end of line 17 and insert— (a) in the case of a scheme for Great Britain, may enable British Shipbuilders to authorise any of its members or employees or any officer or employee of a relevant company to determine on behalf of British Shipbuilders any such question which falls to be determined by British Shipbuilders; and (b) in the case of a scheme for Northern Ireland, may enable a Northern Ireland company to authorise any of its officers or employees to determine on its behalf any such question which falls to be determined by it. This is merely a technical amendment which I hope hon. Members on both sides of the House will be able readily to accept. In it we seek additional powers of delegation for British Shipbuilders and its employees to have more flexibility in taking some of the decisions they will have to take in the administration of the scheme.

For example, those who are not direct employees of British Shipbuilders would have been precluded from helping in the administration of the scheme under the clause as originally drafted, and we wished to make provision for employees of the operating subsidiaries to be included.

Moreover, under the original drafting it would have been possible for senior headquarters officials and even board members to be excluded from some of the deliberations that will be necessary.

The main object of the amendment is to avoid imposing an over-rigid administrative framework on British Shipbuilders and Harland and Wolff in one particular small respect.

If the words of the amendment differ slightly in the context of Northern Ireland, that is because there is a rather different structure of shipbuilding there, but the intention for Northern Ireland is the same.

Amendment agreed to.

11.19 p.m.

Mr. Kaufman

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I shall not make an opening speech, but I shall be ready to do my best to reply to any matters raised by hon. Members on Third Reading.

11.20 p.m.

Mr. Norman Lamont

When the Minister of State replied to the debate on New Clause 1 he said that we had had an amicable debate and Committee stage. I do not want to end the proceedings on the Bill on a note of sourness or sharp disagreement.

I think that we have made clear that we have some reservations about the Bill. First, there has been the problem that we have gone over tonight—the effect on independence. In reply to the right hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough), who spoke on New Clause 1, may I say that I do not think that the fact that we fought to keep the ship repairers out of the nationalisation net is an argument against what we roposed earlier? We were assured all the time that there would be an arm's length relationship between British Shipbuilders and the Government, that it would not be subsidised and that there would be fair competition with the private sector. We have argued that what is in the Bill is a subsidy and that it will have ripple effects throughout the industry.

Part of the problem is that we have known very little about the ultimate numbers who may become redundant in British Shipbuilders. I think that there is a lot of confusion about what the Government intend to do to the British shipbuilding industry. It is not entirely clear whether we are rationalising the industry or trying to recreate it in all its former glory. There seems to be a certain amount of ambiguity about that matter. Subsidies have been given by the taxpayer to British Shipbuilders, yet we are totally unaware of the sums that we are talking about.

On Second Reading we said that the sums mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum would very likely be exceeded in practice. We thought it unlikely that the sums being talked about then would be sufficient to tempt people voluntarily to become redundant.

How quickly what we prophesied has come to pass. The Minister has already announced a substantial upping of the amounts that are to be made available. Of course, I am grateful to the Minister for sending me the details of the alteration in the scheme, but I should have been even more grateful had he sent me page 4 which he sent to everybody else. When a journalist telephoned to ask me about the great increase in costs under this scheme and the totally different figure per 1,000 workers on page 4 of the letter, I felt extremely confused, because I had not received any such notification.

Mr. Gordon Wilson (Dundee, East)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that he cannot expect the same service as is given to the Liberal Party, the Scottish National Party and the Ulster Unionists if he remains a member of the official Opposition?

Mr. Lamont

I have always been firmly against a multi-party system, because the fringe lunatics get too much power in such a system.

We are worried about the changes that have been made. We have seen a considerable alteration. We are now talking of redundancy payments, apart from the normal statutory scheme, up to £7,400 for each person. The cost per 1,000 workers has gone up from £900,000 to £1.5 million. That is a rise of 50 per cent.

Mr. Kaufman

Sixty per cent.

Mr. Lamont

Sixty per cent. I am grateful to the Minister of State for that correction. I think that the House is legitimately entitled to be concerned when, at a few hours' notice, whatever the Minister's good intentions, it is suddenly asked to treat the Bill as it treated it before when it was on a very different scale. When we consider the effect upon independence and also the effects that these schemes have on other industries which wish to devise their schemes for rationalising their labour forces we become very concerned indeed.

What about the control of public expenditure? If 10,000 people are to be made redundant in British Shipbuilders, we may be talking of an amount between £15 million and £70 million. If 15,000 people are to be made redundant, we may be talking of an amount between £22 million and £100 million.

I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary saying how concerned he is at the need to control public expenditure. I know that it is a familiar jibe to refer to deals as being blank cheques, but that is a true description of what we are having to pass tonight, because we have been given no indication at all of the scale of redundancies in British Shipbuilders. Now suddenly, at the last minute, the per capita cost is increased by a very considerable amount, and the whole public expenditure implications of the legislation are very different indeed.

We are also concerned with the point that we raised in Committee—whether sums of money of this sort will be made available to people who, through their own industrial action, bring about the closure of a yard. We have read about the 1,100 men to be made redundant in Swan Hunter. May we take it from the Minister that the people who have been involved in the recent dispute will not, if they have been responsible for redundancies, qualify for these amounts of money? Common sense dictates that we should not cushion people so much against the consequences of their action. If people bring about the closure of a yard as a result of their own demarcation disputes and their own industrial action, they should not then be given a sum of £7,000 or £10,000. That would seem to be an extraordinary thing to do, and I hope that the Minister will give us the assurance that that will not be the case.

Even after upping the figures in the Bill, I should be surprised if the Minister did not have to do it again, because we know that in British Shipbuilders there is a markedly old labour force in certain parts. As I read the details of the scheme that he has put forward today, it is very heavily weighted in favour of the older man, quite rightly, but I should have thought that the costs might well prove to be an under-estimate, and that quite a disproportionate number of older men will be applying.

These are our reservations about the Bill. Nevertheless, we accept the general principles of it, and agree that it is right that when an industry is faced with contraction on the scale that British Shipbuilders is likely to have to cope with the crudity of market forces should be softened and the victims of industrial change should receive some compensation for that. Of course, we accept that principle. Of course, we want this problem to be handled humanely. Of course, we as much as anyone else, whatever our political reservations about British Shipbuilders, want to see it as a successful competitive shipbuilding industry.

11.29 p.m.

Mr. John Evans (Newton)

I do not welcome the Bill, because we are talking tonight of a situation in which thousands of men in the near future will lose their employment in an industry to which they have given their lives.

The debate is difficult in some contexts because we cannot tell what the redundancies will be in the next two or three years. Indeed, the EEC Commission has just produced a document on the restructuring of the European shipbuilding industry which refers to a loss between now and 1981 of some 90,000 jobs in Europe in the shipbuilding and associated industries. It is difficult at this stage to judge where the redundancies will fall in different countries. That will obviously depend on the success or failure of the different yards within the Community in obtaining orders.

The point that has to be borne in mind is that we are not simply talking about men losing their jobs in different yards. I believe that there will be closures of certain shipyards, some of which bear famous names. I should not like to hazard a guess which yards will close, but on the basis of 90,000 redundancies within Europe the British shipbuilding industry will be facing between 8,000 and 10,000 redundancies. That could well mean two, three or four shipyards. There is a very difficult period in front of us.

However, I welcome that for the first time shipyard workers are being treated in a manner which other workers have enjoyed for some time. Only comparatively recently shipyard workers were informed at 3 o'clock on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon that they would finish at 4.30 p.m. or 5 p.m. that evening, without any reference to redundancy payments or even a "thank you" for the service which they had given.

In that context there is one question that I should like to ask my hon. Friend. I apologise to him because I received the document which he circulated to Committee Members only about a quarter of an hour ago.

Paragraph 4 of that document states that in certain ship-repairing companies any employee who establishes a qualifying period of service in accordance with the provisions for casual employment under the Redundancy Payments Act 1965 shall be entitled to payments for a corresponding length of service under the shipbuilding scheme.

Unfortunately, because of my commitments in Europe, I could not speak on Second Reading or serve on the Committee. I should have welcomed the opportunity to do so. I hope that the same principle will apply to shipyard workers. I assure my hon. Friend that many shipyard workers on Tyneside, Wearside and Clydeside have worked in the industry all their working lives from the age of 14, 15 or 16, but have worked in a number of yards. Sometimes there has been a fairly lengthy break between service. One person finished working in May and could not get another job until September.

Will my hon. Friend say whether the same conditions will apply to shipyard repair workers? I stress how essential it is that this applies to both repair workers and shipbuilding workers. Clearly there will be very great difficulties if shin repair workers are treated humanely under the Bill whereas shipbuilding workers find themselves less well treated.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will resist the blandishments of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont), who referred to workers bringing their own problems upon themselves. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the problem on Tyneside is complex and difficult. I myself have strong views on this subject. I would remind him that none of the shipyard workers on Tyneside on strike, nor going slow or banning overtime. What they have reverted to—wrongly, I believe—is a situation which applied two or three years ago and which always applied in the industry before then.

I ask my hon. Friend to reply fully to the points that I have made and recognise that these men have given their lives to the shipbuilding industry. If they are rather bloody-minded at the moment, it is because of the history and viciousness of bad industrial relations which for so long plagued their industry. As I have said, some old men were informed at a moment's notice that their services were no longer required. They collected their cards and money and took their tool boxes up the bank at 5 o'clock that night.

I welcome the redundancy aspects of the Bill but I submit that this is a sad occasion, because I believe that we are seeing the contraction of a great industry. I hope that the House recognises how important it is that we retain a shipbuilding industry. It would be unthinkable for a great trading nation like Great Britain to allow her shipbuilding industry to die. I regard this Bill as an important step in strengthening this vital industry. In that context, and only in that context, I welcome it.

11.35 p.m.

Mrs. Margaret Bain (Dunbartonshire, East)

I endorse many of the views expressed by the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Evans). No one in the House could fail to be moved by the background against which this legislation is being enacted. In earlier speeches reference was made to the implications for shipbuilding yards throughout the United Kingdom. In that context I wish to refer to the weighting of the membership of the Standing Committee on the Bill. If we analyse the representation of Members on that Committee and set aside the Government Ministers, seven would appear to have no shipbuilding interests. Many of us, like the hon. Member for Newton, would have welcomed the opportunity to serve on the Committee, because of our backgrounds, coming from shipbuilding areas—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton)

Order. The hon. Lady probably realises what I am about to say. She must make only passing reference to the composition of the Standing Committee.

Mrs. Bain

I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

There has been a dereliction of duty on the part of the Government in terms of the implications of this policy on shipbuilding. On Second Reading I raised the question—other Members raised it in Committee—of the implications of EEC and OECD recommendations on shipbuilding. Many of us have been concerned about the termination of the temporary employment subsidy and we are still very concerned about the implications of EEC legislation and the Intervention Fund for shipbuilding. It is essential that the Minister should make clear what will happen, because the uncertainty in shipbuilding areas is of such an intensity that the people there have the right to know.

I ask the Minister to comment on the reference to union participation in discussions. There is one union that represents a substantial part of the shipbuilding industry. In this connection it is unfortunate that the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Garrett) is not here. I refer to SAIMA—the Shipbuilding and Allied Industries and Management Association. On 1st February its members started to work to rule, or go slow, be- cause of the refusal of British Shipbuilders to allow them participation rights in the negotiations.

It seemed to me from the remarks of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) that he was showing a distinct inhumanity to man. He complained about the effect on public expenditure of implementing the redundancy scheme and appeared to object to money being spent. He complained about the scheme apparently because it was better than the initial scheme projected by the Government. This was in keeping with the attitude of the Tories in regard to the Polish contract, with all its very important implications for our shipbuilding industry.

Finally, I want to refer to the speed with which the Bill has gone through the House, I have a suspicion that the alteration in the scheme and the speed with which the Bill has progressed are direct results of what has happened with Swan Hunter in recent weeks. It is unfortunate that the Minister did not pay attention to some remarks made on Second Reading when it was pointed out that a dispute similar to that at Swan Hunter had taken place in Govan in 1972 and had been solved. Had the solution arrived at in Govan been tried at Swan Hunter, Tyneside would not have suffered 1,200 redundancies, as it did this week.

Will the Minister in this context comment on the fact that British Shipbuilders do not yet appear to have appointed an industrial relations manager? In the West of Scotland there are substantial rumours that Mr. Ian Farningham, the industrial relations manager of Govan Shipbuilders, has been appointed to the post. Why did it take so long to make the appointment in view of the implications for other shipbuilding areas in the United Kingdom?

I have been extremely grateful to the Minister for sending me the comments on the amendments as they went through the Committee stage. I was fortunate enough to get page 4, but none of the Press telephoned me for a comment on it.

We on these Benches are extremely worried about the future of the whole shipbuilding industry, because of its importance to the manufacturing base, particularly in Scotland, where there is a desperate need to maintain and expand the manufacturing base in order to solve the dreadful unemployment that has come about under the present Administration.

11.42 p.m.

Mr. Bradford

I have two questions to put to the Minister. Returning to the matter of involving the private sector in this legislation, the Minister will recall that in Committee he stated that he had to clear the Intervention Fund question with the Commission. Has he also cleared the exclusion of the private sector with the Commission? Is it incumbent upon him to do so?

Although I am very much in favour of this legislation and although I recognise the need for it, I wonder how one obviates the possibility of its encouraging a rundown of the industry. It seems to me that in Harland and Wolff, for instance, we need to retain our best men, and at present it appears that if this legislation comes into force it may militate against this.

11.43 p.m.

Mr. Neville Trotter (Tynemouth)

wish to add my anxiety about the apparent type of person who is foreseen as being made redundant. It is not easy from the four pages that we have been given to compute what would be paid to each person in different circumstances. It seems that anyone over 40 years of age would obtain a length of service payment based on the whole of service. Anyone over 40 would be expected to work for some 20 years and therefore would be entitled to a substantial figure.

If half the people leaving are the younger men in the industry, they would be leaving on a payment of not less than £300. The other half presumably will leave with a sum of £2,000 to £3,000. It seems from the figures available that this is assuming that we shall have a very big loss among younger men and not such a big loss among older men who are entitled to much more.

It is rather unsatisfactory that we did not have available the running of length of service payments. Between one and 25 years we are told there is a minimum of two weeks for each year, and 80 weeks after 25 years. It is not clear how the figures go in between. The age payments appear to be £50 a year over 40. Between 40 and 55 the figure is £750, so that works out at £50 a year.

I am concerned about the arithmetic, and it is a pity that we have not had longer to consider this. It seems to indicate that probably it will be largely younger men who leave the industry. If that is so, it will be disastrous for the future. I hope that the Minister will give some idea of how the average payment of £1,500 is arrived at.

11.45 p.m.

Mr. Grylls

I support what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) on the subject of Swan Hunter. It is of great concern to us and the country what will happen about the 1,152 redundancies.

In Committee the Minister said that the main cause of redundancies will not be connected with the industrial action which we discussed in Committee. Sadly for Swan Hunter this is the case and these people are being made redundant. If they had accepted the ships allocated to them in the Polish order, those redundancies would not have occurred. Will this not make life difficult for British Shipbuilders in seeking to exert discipline within yards and in trying to achieve better industrial relations? It certainly will be difficult if the situation is brought about by self-inflicted wounds.

I should like the Minister to give his view whether British Shipbuilders will be applying the new redundancy legislation to workers under the 90-day notice in respect of Swan Hunter, or is he imposing on British Shipbuilders the burden that workers will enjoy these large payments as a result of a self-inflicted wound? If that is so, it is a bad principle. When sadly other people in industry are made redundant, they receive no extra payment above the national redundancy scheme. We agree to taking this step for the British shipbuilding industry, but not if such a situation is brought about by the workers' own objections.

11.47 p.m.

Mr. Kaufman

We are sailing back into calmer waters after a slightly choppy passage on New Clause 1. I wish to apologise to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont). I hope he will forgive me for alluding to a private conversation but I was slightly bemused when I met him a little earlier considering a Written Answer which I had communicated to him. I apologise for the fact that he had lost page 4. We shal send him a copy of the missing page.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames was a little severe about the cost of the scheme, but if he re-examines the reports of our Committee deliberations he will acknowledge that I made clear we anticipate that the cost of the scheme would be greater than given in the illusrative example in the Explanatory Memorandum. However, it was made clear that that was only an example. The hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott) in the debate on the Polish order, to which the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) referred, said that he might prefer higher redundancy payments to the Polish order.

I shall do my best to answer some of the points, but I must emphasise that what I presented today in the form of a Written Answer to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) is not the scheme itself. When I met the confederation yesterday morning it was made clear that there will have to be considerable further negotiation about the fine detail before we have the order. The House will be able to debate the order.

Therefore, I am not in a position to answer the point about casual shipbuilding workers to which my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Evans) referred. That will be a matter to be considered. I cannot give him a commitment, but what he said illustrates the wide experience that my hon. Friend brings to our debates. The European Assembly's loss is this House's gain. We shall find my hon. Friend much more useful in our shipbuilding debates than ever he could have been across the Channel. I am only sorry that he was not able to play as full a part as we wished both in the nationalisation debates and in the debates on the Bill.

The details of the scheme that I have put before the House today amount substantially to the scheme that was proposed to me by British Shipbuilders, Harland and Wolff and the confederation. However, I informed the meeting that I had yesterday with British Shipbuilders and the confederation of certain amendments to the scheme that the Government felt necessary to make, including a ceil ing to payments and coping with the casual ship repair workers.

It has taken a great deal of negotiation to agree on an outline scheme. I pay tribute both to the confederation, which never really liked to idea of the scheme for reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Newton has mentioned, and British Shipbuilders for the painstaking way in which it has negotiated the scheme. I believe that its time has been well spent. I believe that the fundamental principles of the scheme that has been produced have many advantages over other schemes.

I repeat that the scheme is far from complete. The document that I have sent to hon. Members sets out the principles that we think should be embodied. It does not say how the principles will be implemented. I am as aware as anyone that when officials and lawyers get down to the detailed job of transferring principles into legal language there will be many difficulties to overcome and many potential anomalies to guard against, but that is their job

In fobbing off that job to them I pay tribute to my officials in the Department of Industry for allowing me to be able to supply the House with the information that I have put before it today. I have placed an intolerable burden upon my officials and they have shouldered it willingly. I think it right to place on record the gratitude that I and my colleagues in the Department feel to my officials for the work that they have done.

The fact that we still have to draft the order means that the details that I have given are not immutable. I have given them at an early stage as I believe that the House has a right to know what is in our minds and what is being planned. However, it may be that during the process of practical implementation some of the details will have to be changed slightly to meet the requirements of a statutory instrument, or any other practical requirement. I made that clear yesterday. Whenever anything is put down on paper, we cannot be sure that it has been put down in the way that is wanted. We shall have to wait and see, but the House knows what we have in mind to try to achieve.

I assure the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East, if she takes it as an assurance, that so far no industrial relations member has been appointed to the board of British Shipbuilders. A great deal of the delay has arisen because it was extremely difficult to recruit board members. We have had considerable problems in obtaining an industrial relations member. When such an appointment is made we shall make it public.

I deal jointly with the questions raised by the hon. Members for Tynmouth (Mr. Trotter) and Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford). Both hon. Members expressed the fear that the scheme would mean a rundown that would unbalance the labour force and age structure and result in a loss of skills. These are serious matters, and we are anxious that such manifestations be avoided. Hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough), referred to the scheme for the iron and steel industry. This scheme is much better than that. It is a great improvement. The cut-off in the steel industry scheme is the age of 55. In this scheme, the cut-off is the age of 40. I acknowledge to the hon. Member for Tynemouth that this is pretty rough justice for the man just under 40 compared with the man who has just reached 40, but there must be a cut-off date and this will inevitably mean rough justice for the person cut off by it.

In general, the older the man in this industry, which requires such heavy manual work, the more difficult it will be for him to find other employment. Any scheme ought to take that into account in fixing the level of benefits. If we are to try to give adequate compensation to the man who has served the industry well for many years—and we have all been in shipyards and met such men—there must be a corresponding loss for the younger man. Otherwise, the scheme would become prohibitively expensive.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames spoke speculatively about massive sums. We are sure that they will not be reached. We shall try to give the House better estimates as we go along, though I am not sure to what extent that will be possible. One of the reasons for the higher cost of this scheme is that a substantial proportion of the cost is represented by the generous payments being given to men aged between 40 and 55, compared with the payments in the iron and steel industry's scheme.

I can assure the hon. Members for Tynmouth and Belfast, South that it is the intention of British Shipbuilders and Harland and Wolff, as far as possible, to call for volunteers when redundancies threaten. Naturally, those are most likely to come from among those who will receive most benefit from the scheme. There will be nothing to prevent a long-serving employee in his 30s from seeking a transfer to another British Shipbuilders' subsidiary under the provisions of the mobility payments in the Bill. I hope that that is some reassurance to the hon. Members, and that it helps them a little.

Mr. John Evans

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is nothing in the Bill or in the scheme to suggest that any employee has the right to demand redundancy? If voluntary redundancies are to be the basis of the scheme, for any management to have the right to pick and choose the men whom it wishes to make redundant would be wrong.

Mr. Kaufman

It will be a matter for consultation with the trade unions. I know that my hon. Friend accepts that it would be out of the question that in a scheme which provides such substantial payments a worker should be able to decide that he wants to leave the industry and pocket the payments. It would be grotesque if a worker in a yard with a good deal of work, situated in an area of low unemployment—such as Vosper Thornycroft—should be able to volunteer for redundancy regardless of the needs of the yard and its orders. I do not think that my hon. Friend is suggesting that this should be allowed to happen.

Both Opposition spokesmen made the point, rebutted by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton, that workers affected by the redundancies at Swan Hunter should not qualify for payments under the Bill. I am not going to discuss the position at Swan Hunter. It is not right for the Government to comment on that extremely unhappy situation, but I should like to deal with the general point made by the hon. Members.

They tabled an amendment in Committee, which we defeated, proposing that workers declared redundant through their own industrial action should not obtain payments under our scheme. British Shipbuilders and Harland and Wolff are making strenuous efforts to improve their industrial relations and they have had a lot of success.

It would be a brave man who would declare that in any dispute the blame lay with any one party. What justification could there be for singling out workers who are made redundant for still further punishment for losing their jobs, especially when their colleagues keep their jobs? Could that help in the event of a continued failure to find work resulting in more workers becoming redundant? After all, Swan Hunter workers have been declared redundant because of a lack of work. There would have been more work if it had had the Polish order, but the lack of work is due to the world shipbuilding crisis.

Each redundancy payment is a personal entitlement to an individual. Each inlividual right to payment must be based on the man's personal circumstances. That is sufficient to demonstrate the sheer impossibility of implementing the suggestion.

The Bill is being introduced to cope with the threat of loss of work throughout the world, not as part of industrial policy. We want to do everything possible to discourage any work force from acting irresponsibly. The suggestion that has been made is not the way in which to go about that task. It is the task of British Shipbuilders, Harland and Wolff and the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions because, at the end of the day, jobs lost will be lost because there is no work, not because of industrial action. Industrial action might feature among the reasons why contraction takes place in one place rather than another. It is a sufficient deterrent to irresponsibility but it is not sufficient reason for singling out those who are redundant for still further punishment.

The hon. Members for Kingston upon Thames and Dunbartonshire, East asked about the numbers of redundancies. I cannot give any numbers because it is not our aim to have redundancies. Our aim is to avoid redundancies. The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East, in one of her severe remarks which she finds so difficult to make, talked about the Government's dereliction of duty. She knows that the actions of this Government have provided quantities of work for shipbuilding yards in Scotland. Thousands of shipyard workers on Clydeside and in Aberdeen and Dundee owe their jobs to the Government's action. Workers at Govan Shipbuilders, Robb Caledon Shipbuilders, Scott Lithgow and other yards have been provided with work because of Government policies and the Intervention Fund.

I was able to go to Scotland a year ago and boast about what we have done. When the Minister of State recently walked into Govan Shipbuilders, he was given a standing ovation before he opened his mouth.

Mrs. Bain

The Minister always confuses opposition parties and thinks that we are all the same. We do not oppose the Intervention Fund or the Polish contract. What action do the Government intend to take about OECD and EEC recommendations for redundancies in the shipbuilding industry?

Mr. Kaufman

I have said to the European Commissioners and to the House that we shall not accept redundancies that are imposed across the board. That is known in Brussels and in the House. We shall not do it. We know that there will be a contraction in the industry. We have never pretended that there will not. We shall do our best to minimise the number of redundancies in the industry. We have had amazing success in the last year. We have done better than any other shipbuilding industry in the world to save jobs. We shall go on doing our best to save jobs. Hon. Members know very well that that is so. We shall obviously work for a co-ordinated policy in the Community—that makes a great deal of sense—to deal with the Japanese and other Far Eastern competitors. But in the past we have not added to our a capacity and we will not therefore accept across-the-board reductions. That is well known.

The Bill was not introduced in any way as part of a plan for redundancies. We do not have such a plan. It is designed to cope with the redundancies which will inevitably occur. I agree that it is not a happy Bill. We should have preferred not to introduce it, but we believe that it is right to do so and we ask the House to pass it.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

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