HC Deb 24 February 1981 vol 999 cc735-6
9. Mr. Adley

asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the relationship between industrial disputes and unemployment.

Mr. Waddington

Industrial disputes are bound to have an adverse effect on competitiveness, which can lead to the loss of jobs and even to the closure of firms. There is little doubt, for example, that the recent seamen's dispute will result in job losses in the United Kingdom fleet.

Mr. Adley

As strikes and bad industrial relations obviously lead to unemployment, will my hon. and learned Friend comment on the proposal in the newspapers today from Mr. Roy Jenkins to penalise strikers through loss of benefits? Does my hon. and learned Friend think that that is likely to lead to improved industrial relations?

Mr. Waddington

I am bound to agree with my hon. Friend that it would be a dangerous course to pursue. I read the proposal with some surprise. My hon. Friend is entirely right to emphasise the fact that unnecessary disputes, excessive wage claims and bad industrial relations have done such damage to our economy.

Mr. Robert C. Brown

Is the Minister aware that 13,000 school leavers are unemployed in the Northern region and that only 1,000 jobs have been notified to the careers officers? None of those youngsters has ever had the chance to take industrial action—

Mr. Speaker

Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman had that supplementary question in mind in regard to another question. If the hon. Gentleman wants to relate it to industrial disputes, perhaps he will do so very quickly.

Mr. Brown

That is exactly the point that I wanted to make. None of those 13,000 youngsters would necessarily want to take part in industrial disputes, but they have not had the opportunity to do so, because of a lack of jobs.

Is the hon. and learned Gentleman further aware that 18,944 people in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne are now without jobs? How does he feel about the Government having doubled unemployment in that city?

Mr. Waddington

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his ingenuity in relating his supplementary question to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley). I also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his genuine concern about a real problem. It does not alter the fact that, undoubtedly, another cause of unemployment is unnecessary industrial disputes.

Mr. Bill Walker

If my hon. and learned Friend accepts that industrial disputes have caused job losses, particularly in manufacturing industry, can we look forward to job losses in the Civil Service if there are unnecessary strikes there?

Mr. Waddington

My hon. Friend has shown almost as much ingenuity as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, West (Mr. Brown). I do not think that that matter falls within the ambit of this question.

Mr. Stoddart

Is not it a fact that Government policy is to browbeat workers into docility and into accepting lower standards of living? Is not it also a fact that the Government have embarked upon an industrial relations policy of smashing the weak into the ground and caving in before the strong?

Mr. Waddington

That is the sort of absurd hyperbole which has brought the opposition into such disrepute in recent months.

Mr. John Grant

Now that the miners have succeeded in installing a Government of pragmatic interventionists, what will the Government do about the water industry dispute? I am sure the Minister will have noted the Secretary of State recording his unstinted admiration for the Prime Minister. What will the two of them do? Will they intervene at this early stage before the situation hardens; or will they sit it out, bring in the troops and try to recover some of their lost virility? It is time that the country was given an answer.

Mr. Waddington

As the hon. Gentleman knows, negotiations are in train and it would be highly irresponsible of me to comment at the present time.

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