HC Deb 02 February 1979 vol 961 cc1839-45
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Shore)

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about strike action against local authority cemeteries and crematoria.

Last Wednesday evening, I met the general secretaries and national officers of the unions concerned and conveyed to them the strong feelings of the House on this matter and repeated my earlier call for an immediate return to work. They agreed to pass on my call to their members through their regional and local officials.

Yesterday morning, on my instructions, my Department's regional director in the North-West met leaders of the three political parties in Liverpool, the Archbishop and Bishop of Liverpool and senior officials of the local authority to review the situation in the city and to consider with them what assistance by the Government is needed.

They were unanimous in the view that the situation should and could be resolved at the local level. Following that meeting, as hon. Members will have seen from today's press reports, the men involved in the Liverpool disputes have agreed, on their union's advice, to return to work on Monday.

Mr. Speaker, I have already made known to the House my own deep concern that industrial action of this kind should cease. While welcoming the decision of the Liverpool workers to return to work, I am still concerned that similar industrial action is reported to be taking place elsewhere in the country. I hope that the strong wishes of the House will now be heeded by all those concerned and I hope, too, that any strike action affecting burial and cremation services will now cease.

Mr. Heseltine

The Secretary of State will understand that we welcome very much the news that the situation in Liverpool appears to have improved considerably, but is he aware that the position in Tameside is now intolerable? There are now 40 bodies remaining unburied, and since the assurances given by the Home Secretary on Monday and the Secretary of State on Wednesday that there should be action, precisely nothing has happened. The position in Tameside is that a Mr. Rawcliffe, who is a local representative of the union involved there, arranged a meeting this morning which was cancelled. As a consequence, the terms of settlement which had broadly proved acceptable in Liverpool have not even been put to the strikers in Tame-side. The local authority in Tameside feels that it has no choice but to ask contractors to come in and dig graves and provide operators for the crematoria. Will the Secretary of State say firmly and unequivocally that the Government will give all backing to that authority in the steps that it feels it must take? In view of the situation, will the Secretary of State come back to the House with another statement at the earliest opportunity next week?

Mr. Shore

I am always available to the House to answer questions and to make statements as they are thought appropriate. I am fully seized of the importance of this matter. The problem at Tameside is serious. We gave first priority to the problem in Liverpool, which was the city most grievously affected. My understanding of Tame-side is that a meeting was to be called today, with a recommendation from the union to return to work. I am afraid that I have not got the detailed reports but I understand that there has been some further argument. I still believe and hope that there will be a meeting of the men concerned and that the right decision will be taken. I am fully aware of all our responsibilities in these matters but I think that in the circumstances it would be better to have that meeting before further action is contemplated.

Mr. Moonman

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a twofold problem? The first thing is to ensure that out of the abhorrence of the events of the last week the men should go back to work. We are glad that good sense has prevailed in Liverpool. However, the second problem remains. Will my right hon. Friend comment on the fact that an opportunity will be provided in Liverpool during the next few weeks, because the men will go out again on strike unless the issues of wages and conditions are resolved? We have a breathing space; we have not solved the problem.

Mr. Shore

Meaningful negotiations will begin shortly on the whole question of local authority manual workers' pay. These will cover the men who have been involved in these actions. I hope that there will be a satisfactory solution arising from those talks. But I do not believe that while the talks are continuing—and even if they were to run into difficulty—it would be right for this kind of action to be taken.

Mr. Graham Page

Is the Secretary of State aware that the union' advice to the Liverpool gravediggers and crematoria attendants and the acceptance of that advice is very welcome? However, is he aware that this applies only to the city of Liverpool, and up to half an hour ago, when I made inquiries, other metropolitan boroughs on Merseyside had not received any notification from the union or the strike committees that the gravediggers and the crematoria attendants would return. In the borough in which my constituency is situated, half the grave- diggers and crematoria attendants have been out for a week, and according to the authority the other half will join them on Monday. Will the Secretary of State urge the unions to hold meetings with their strike committees and see that the advice accepted by Liverpool is accepted by those in the other metropolitan boroughs on Merseyside?

Mr. Shore

I am aware that boroughs adjacent to Liverpool and others in the North-West have had various actions taken by the men concerned this week. I shall see that this matter is taken up straight away.

Mr. Stephen Ross

Is the Secretary of State aware that we very much support the sentiments of the last paragraph of his statement and would like to express our thanks to the initiative of the police and Church leaders in Liverpool who have played a role in this? Will he give us an assurance that the backlog in Liverpool, which is very substantial, will be dealt with quickly and that there is no need for anyone to be buried at sea?

Mr. Shore

There may have been some misapprehensions about burial at sea. I think that it was an expression of one of the alternatives by the area medical officer, but I do not think that it was ever seriously contemplated. I believe that once the men are back there will be a steady and quick improvement in the situation.

Mr. Ogden

Will my right hon. Friend accept my thanks for the quiet but effective part that he played in the negotiations by encouraging Church leaders of all denominations on Merseyside to bring people together? If that can be continued, and my right hon. Friend's contacts with people continue, there is some hope of getting this kind of a settlement extended to other places. Regardless of the emotional impact, does he agree that our duties are more to the living in the hospitals than to the dead in the crematoria?

Mr. Shore

I believe that we have duties to both, but I think—while thanking my hon. Friend for his remarks—that in these very difficult matters the importance of responsible leadership—not only temporal and civic but spiritual leadership—is very important in the community. I am strongly convinced of the basic feelings and the understandings of the men themselves and I believe that we must appeal to that deep sense in order to overcome this problem.

Mr. Steen

I should like to join with my hon. Friends in welcoming the announcement by the Secretary of State. There is one point that concerns me, which I mentioned yesterday to the Lord President. It relates to the problems faced by the relatives of deceased persons, who have had to be embalmed. These relatives have been put to considerable extra cost which has been not less than £18 and sometimes as much as £30. I wonder whether the Secretary of State could tell the House whether he will make special arrangements so that those relatives can claim a special grant to cover the cost of embalming?

Mr. Shore

I note the hon. Gentleman' point and am certainly prepared to consider, with the local authorities, any proposal on that point.

Mr. William Hamilton

May I revert to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Moonman)? There is a very justified pay claim for low-paid workers, and the Government must surely be a little more flexible in negotiations within the next few weeks, but, however justified that claim may be, will my right hon. Friend put it on record that everybody in the House would condemn unconditionally the barbaric and inhumane behaviour of a tiny minority of people who have cast a slur on the fair name of trade unionism in this country?

Mr. Shore

I do not think that anyone has any doubt about the views of the House concerning the actions taken in this particular and most sensitive area. It is difficult to imagine any kind of civilised society that does not feel what I know the whole House feels on this question. On the question of the flexibility of the negotiations, I do not think that this is the moment to add to what I said in the House only two days ago. It is my strong wish and belief that the negotiations, which did not start when we expected them to, will start very soon.

Mr. Rees-Davies

With regard to what the Minister calls meaningful negotiations and what I call ongoing negotiations, will he take into account the possibility of arbitration? The ambulance men have indicated to me that, so far as Kent is concerned, they would be very interested in the possibility of arbitration on their terms and conditions of service. Could the negotiations take into account the possibility that that method might be used in other areas of the National Health Service? Whether or not the Government retain the right in the long run to refuse the award, does not arbitration have a role to play in future negotiations?

Mr. Shore

It is not for me to make statements about the possible ways of proceeding with the difficult problems faced by the National Health Service, for which I am not the responsible Minister, but in terms of the local government manual workers' wage negotiations, this proposal has not, I think, been put by either side. What is being discussed is the role of comparability studies in the determination of pay.

Mr. Skinner

Does the Minister accept that a long-term solution to this problem cannot be achieved by waffle with archbishops and others of that kind, and that the real answer to the problem lies with him, as a representative of the Government, and others like him, negotiating with the trade unions involved on the basis of the £60-a-week minimum wage, not ony for those in Liverpool but for those workers in many other parts of the country currently engaged in a battle for a decent wage and the establishment of a little dignity?

Mr. Cormack

Dignity is the very last thing the hon. Member knows anything about.

Mr. Shore

I am very much aware of the need to find a satisfactory solution to what is undoubtedly a difficult pay problem, but I believe that we have to examine these things in greater detail and not simply to generalise on the basis of any particular figure as being the only possible way of resolving the situation. We must make progress this year and we must also find the machinery for the future which will ensure a fairer, more sensible and more rational approach to pay in the public sector. We are trying to do both.

Mr. Mellish

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask for your good will and that of the House? For some years now, in dockland, that derelict area about which we have heard a great deal in the past, there has been a project called "Tramell Crow". The scheme runs into many million of pounds, and it needed Government support. I am not defending that; I am simply stating the case.

As I understand it from the press this morning, the Government, having carefully considered the matter, have rejected the scheme. That decision will be of great concern to my local authority and to those who live and work in the area, because it involves many thousands of jobs.

My point of order is this: can my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who happens to be here, explain to me in some detail why it is that one reads in the press of a decision such as this and does not hear about it on the Floor of the House, when it is a matter of such great importance? Can my right hon. Friend be allowed to do that?

Mr. Speaker

Order. The right hon. Gentleman, as a former Chief Whip, seems to have learned every trick in the trade. The House will have heard what he said and so, of course, will people outside, but I am afraid that I have received no request from his right hon Friend to make a statement this morning.