HC Deb 22 April 1986 vol 96 cc157-8
5. Mr. Charles Wardle

asked the Paymaster General whether he will review the operation of industrial relations legislation passed since 1979.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

We keep the operation of the legislation under constant review. We have made encouraging progress towards giving members a greater say in the affairs of their own union, a fairer balance of power between unions and employers, and better industrial relations.

Mr. Wardle

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Does he agree that the action attempted by SOGAT at Wapping contrasts sharply with the general reduction in the number of industrial disputes following the introduction of ballots? Would SOGAT be in its present difficulties with the courts if it had simply balloted the members it had instructed to strike?

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

My hon. Friend is correct. So far as I am aware, the only injunctions obtained against SOGAT—and certainly the sequestration of the funds—followed because it failed to ballot all its members to come out on strike. It is important that the Government have given union members the right to be consulted before they risk their jobs by becoming involved in strike action.

Mr. Leighton

When the review referred to in the main question is undertaken, will the Paymaster General accept that the majority of British people feel that if Mr. Rupert Murdoch can essay his current industrial butchery and have the law on his side, there is something wrong with the law? Does he agree that if a union such as SOGAT, which did not set out to break, ignore or be in contempt of the law, has every penny of its funds sequestrated within days of entering a lawful dispute following a ballot, the law is grossly unfair and badly in need of reform?

Mr. Clarke

SOGAT failed to ballot the wholesale membership, which it was calling out on strike. The union must have known that that was unlawful. It went before the court and failed to withdraw the blacking instructions or, since then, to purge the contempt. The union has simply failed to comply with a law that has great popular support and has contributed to the improvement in industrial relations in other industries. The Government defend the right of members to be consulted before they put their jobs at risk. SOGAT led its members into folly and cost them all their jobs.

Mr. Holt

While my right hon. and learned Friend is examining post-1979 legislation, will he also examine pre-1979 legislation, especially in respect of the undertaking given by one of the junior Ministers formerly in his Department to consider how legalistic and expensive the industrial tribunals have become and how out of touch with the working world?

Mr. Clarke

We certainly keep the working of the industrial tribunals under review. It is right that workers who have established themselves with an employer should have protection against unfair dismissal. We wish the proceedings to be as devoid of legalisms and as informal as possible. We also believe that the procedures should not be misused by people with frivolous or reckless claims, causing unnecessary expense to many employers.

Mr. Prescott

In view of the declared public sympathy of the Paymaster General for the printers' dispute, is he aware that the simple creation of new companies has swindled the employees out of £80 million in redundancy pay, thrown the right to strike and picket into confusion and allowed the sequestration of funds? According to Mr. Murdoch, that is all now possible under the Government's legislation. In the parliamentary reply that he recently gave me, did the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that, comparing working days lost through industrial disputes under the present legislation with the situation under the Labour Administration, over 118 working days more per 1,000 employees are lost in disputes now than under Labour? Is it not about time that the Government's anti-trade union legislation was reviewed and repealed?

Mr. Clarke

The hon. Gentleman's figures are virtually meaningless. They are an average, inflated in our case by the miners' strike in one year and in the case of the Labour Government by the winter of discontent. The number of disputes last year was the lowest for 50 years—the lowest since 1936. The number of days lost to February this year was the lowest for 19 years. The average figures are quite meaningless.

Mr. Prescott

They are the Government's figures.

Mr. Clarke

On the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, if he will allow me to answer it, there is a limit to the extent to which I can comment on the current dispute between News International and the various print unions. However, if I may speak generally, Fleet street over the years has been epitomised by extremely robust and incompetent management and extremely militant trade unions which have defended rackets of all kinds. I am constantly astonished at the way the hon. Gentleman keeps resorting to Fleet street as an example of the effect of his new industrial relatons legislation, which will sweep away our existing laws.