§ 54. Mr. Adleyasked the Attorney-General what recent discussions he has had with Price Waterhouse about sequestration; and if he will make a statement.
§ The Attorney-GeneralI have not had any discussions with Price Waterhouse since my statement to the House on 11 December. I have nothing to add to what I told the House in that statement.
§ Mr. AdleyIs my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the National Union of Mineworkers and its Labour party allies are doing their best to put about the story that it is the Government who are somehow instigating the legal actions? Therefore, will the Attorney-General—and his right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench and 16 in the Government—take every opportunity to remind the public that this is not the case, and that the actions are being brought by working miners who feel that Mr. Scargill and his colleagues are purloining the union funds in a disgraceful and illegal way, in the light of the fact that there has been no ballot?
§ The Attorney-GeneralMy hon. Friend is right. Last Friday there were three different actions before the High Court, in each of which the plaintiffs were working miners, some from south Wales and some from other mining areas.
The sequestration—and the order and the indemnity that I gave arising from it—was not for the benefit of the plaintiffs. It arose simply from a breach of an order of the court that amounted to contempt of court. In my role as guardian of the public interest I thought it necessary that I act to avoid the real risk that the order of the court could be flouted.
§ Mr. SkinnerIs the Attorney-General aware that he can try as hard as he likes to suggest that the Government are not involved in the court cases, but that when the public realise that the working miners' committee has been advised by two people who have served their apprenticeships at No. 10 under the Prime Minister, and take into account all the other people who have been assisting in the legal battles of working miners, they will be bound to come to the conclusion that the Government are heavily involved in the court actions? The Government are in it up to the neck, with a view to trying to smash the NUM, but they will not succeed. The Government see it as a prelude to smashing the whole of the TUC.
§ The Attorney-GeneralI am not sure whether it would be possible for a miner Member of Parliament to pay a greater insult to fellow miners than to say that they are acting under the advice and guidance of the Tory party. It is simply not true.