§ 8. Mr. Adleyasked the Secretary of State for Employment when he next intends to meet the Trades Union Congress in order to discuss the implications for Government policy of the miners' strike; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Tom KingI have no meeting planned with the TUC to discuss the implications of the miners' strike.
§ Mr. AdleyAlthough I am sure that my right hon. Friend recognises the dilemma of the TUC general council, which feels the need to pay lip-service to Mr. Arthur Scargill, is not the reality that the council has shown by its silence and lack of action its complete disapproval of the violent methods used by Mr. Scargill? In view of the personal and political courage shown by Mr. Willis, would it not be appropriate now for the Government to extend their hand to the TUC to try to improve the relationship between them and the TUC?
§ Mr. KingI made it clear that I have no meeting planned to discuss this matter, but I meet the TUC in committees with hon. Members to discuss various matters, and I am always ready to meet the TUC on matters of common interest. The TUC has paid a heavy price for the resolution that was passed at the conference. Had the TUC led negotiations earlier, it might have been helpful. I pay tribute to the brave words of the general secretary of the TUC at that most unpleasant meeting at Aberavon.
§ Mr. WoodallIs the Secretary of State aware that he should meet members of the TUC, if only to discuss my constituents who are employed by private contractors to carry out work for the National Coal Board, but who have been laid off since the strike started? They received unemployment benefit until recently, when a bright boy at the Department of Employment decided that the men were affected by the strike and would benefit from it. Will he ensure that those men receive their rightful unemployment benefit?
§ Mr. KingThe hon. Gentleman knows that that is not a matter for me. It is a matter for adjudicating officer concerned with such matters. If the hon. Gentleman is trying to tell the House that much hardship has been caused by the dispute and that many people have lost their jobs as a result of the NUM action, many hon. Members would agree with him 100 per cent.
§ Mr. Roger KingWere my right hon. Friend to run into the TUC members on the proverbial Clapham omnibus, would he talk to item about secret ballots and say that if the mineworkers had had a secret ballot they would not have gone on strike, and that if the Austin Rover workers had had a secret ballot, they would not have spent two and half weeks on strike and be returning to work only now?
§ Mr. Tom KingI was pleased to see the announcement today of the decision of some workers to return to work. It underlines more clearly than any speech could that the car park meeting and the show of hands is no longer acceptable for issues of such importance to people's livelihoods and futures, and that the importance of a proper secret ballot before industrial action cannot be overstated.
§ Mr. MasonWhy have those mineworkers who were declared redundant before 6 March, the first day of the strike, who have received their redundancy notices and who have played no part whatever in the strike, been denied their unemployment benefits?
§ Mr. KingAs I have tried to say, under the existing rules this is a matter for the adjudicating officer, not for Ministers. I very much hope that nobody will be in that 141 situation much longer. The number of people who have lost their jobs as a result of the dispute—now 30,000—emphasises the importance of bringing it to an end at the earliest possible moment.
§ Mr. Bill WalkerWhen my right hon. Friend meets the TUC, will he bring to its attention the fact that the decision of Labour councillors in Fife to send vast sums of public money to the miners and the NUM will have an impact on jobs in that area, because it will increase the rates?
§ Mr. KingThe House will welcome the increasing evidence of a return to work, which is widespread and not confined to Bolsover. I hope that we shall soon have a majority of miners returning to work and that the ratepayers of Fife can be protected from that quite unnecessary impost.
§ Mr. PrescottIs the Secretary of state aware of the speech to be made tonight by the Secretary of State for Energy calling for national unity and conciliation in the mining areas, which seems to many of us to be like Attila the Hun calling for a peace conference? Does the Secretary of State accept his responsibility on that new theme of conciliation? Will he follow the lead set by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme), the bishops and the general secretary of the TUC in calling for a convening of the parties to the dispute, or does he simply want to sit aside, hoping that the NUM will be smashed and industrial relations soured for generations ahead?
§ Mr. KingI have never seen my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy in the guise of a wolf on the fold as, I believe, Attila came down. It is no good the hon. Gentleman standing up now and asking for a bit of negotiation and conciliation, when he has said that he backs to the hilt the leader of the NUM, who proudly states that he has not budged an inch throughout the negotiations. If the diary of his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Labour party had been a little less full so that he could have had the courage to tell the NUM and the miners the truth, we might have got an earlier settlement of this damaging dispute.