CONSTITUTION ETC. OF WAGES COUNCILS (Hansard, 23 July 1986)

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
The amendment enables the Secretary of State to appoint up to five independent members to sit on a wages 502 council, instead of a maximum of three as at present. The amendment has been tabled to enable the Secretary of State to make additional appointments to the councils where from time to time there might be difficulty in the independen members attending in adequate numbers. There have been occasions on some councils when it has been possible for only one independent member to be present when representations are being considered. Plainly that is unsatisfactory, and we therefore seek this power.
This power will be used by the Secretary of State only for those councils where the need arises. The power is purely discretionary and is unlikely to be used where the independent members of a council are encountering no difficulties. There was a debate in another place on this matter. I hasten to assure the House that the proposal is made purely for convenience, to ensure that the position does not arise where only one independent member is left with a key role to play in a council. We have no intention of using the power to pack a council with our supporters. The suspicions voiced by Lord McCarthy — I am not sure whether they were serious—in another place are groundless.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
I inform the House that this amendment involves privilege.

§ Mr. Mikardo
I hope that the House will not agree with the Lords in this amendment. I understand and sympathise with the kind of problem that the Minister has described, where the matter is left to one chap because only he has turned up out of the three. First, members should not be appointed unless they give an undertaking that they will, barring illness or accident, be regular attenders at their jobs. If they take on the job, they should undertake to deal with it properly and regularly. Secondly, far too many independent members are appointed to far too many wages councils. Being an independent member of a wages council is almost like being part of a profession, and some people are members of several councils. One reason for poor attendance may be that one person is a member of three wages councils which are meeting at the same time. He cannot be in three places at once.
1.15 am
The Government must find people who will not take on too many wages councils and who can guarantee their attendance. The Minister says that he will use the powers only in emergencies, but the power will exist and he may not be the Minister for ever. Indeed, I doubt whether he will be the Minister for ever.

§ Ms. Clare Short
He is not even in charge of them. It is that other nasty fellow.

§ Mr. Mikardo
My hon. Friend is right. He is not in charge of them anyway. The power to appoint five independent members is a power to distort the entire structure and to weaken the influence of the representative members contrasted with that of the independent members. It would dilute the representative character of a council. The power should not be given to the Secretary of State, and I hope that the House will not accept the amendment.

§ Mr. Wainwright
On this occasion, I differ from the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo). I believe that the Government have sincere motives for extending the number of members to five. I shall give an example which I mentioned in Committee. More than 12 503 years ago, I and my Liberal colleagues discovered that the wages council which dealt solely with lace workers, who were based almost entirely in and around Nottingham, had not even met for several years. There had been a total failure to call the council members together. When we investigated the matter, we discovered that the reasons were that the employers did not want it to meet, the trade union representatives had been conned into believing that the workers would lose their jobs if there was an adjustment in wages and—this is the nub of the matter — the independent members, or what was left of them, were lazy and did not wish to activate the council.
We must go behind attendance at a meeting and question whether there are enough members to ensure that the council can be called together. There is sense in the amendment, and I hope that Ministers will take the opportunity to assure the House that, under their regime, no wages council will be allowed to go for several years without meeting.

§ Ms. Clare Short
The Labour party objects strongly to the amendment. The notes circulated by the Department say that the people working in the retail industry called for it. Who are they supposed to be? The National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers is strongly opposed to the amendment, as is the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. USDAW said that, many years ago, it called for the appointment of more independent members because of the problem of non-attendance, but that the suggestion was that those additional independent members should be appointed by the trade unions and the employers. The Government are not complying with that part of the recommendation.
All unions believe that, given the absolute determination of the Secretary of State for Employment, in everything he does, to cut the wages of the lowest paid, he will have ulterior motives and will stuff the wages councils with so-called independent members who will be in favour of low wage settlements, which will make it more difficult for the trade union representatives to achieve reasonable settlements. That is the view of major trade unions in wages council industries, and it is the serious view of the Opposition. We are not just saying it or protesting. We watched the Secretary of State start off in the Manpower Services Commission, and have seen the damage that he did there and the damage that he continues to do. We do not trust him with these powers.
If members of wages councils are hopeless, moribund and lazy, the answer is not to appoint more hopeless, moribund and lazy independent members, but to appoint different people, to make appointments conditional upon attending meetings, and to push people off if they do not attend. Simply enlarging the number of appalling people who appear to have been members of the laceworkers' wages council, to which the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright) referred, does not necessarily remedy the problem.

§ Mr. Wainwright
It is not a matter of failing to attend meetings but of a member of the council activating the process and ensuring that meetings are called.

§ Ms. Short
I understand that, but I am not at all sure that increasing the number of independent members from three to five will ensure that meetings are called. I 504 understand the hon. Gentleman's reasons for supporting the amendment, but I question whether it would achieve the objective that he intends.

§ Mr. Kenneth Clarke
With the leave of the House, I should like to reply to the debate.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman have the leave of the House to speak again?

Hon. Members
Yes.

§ Mr. Clarke
It was the Retail Consortium which first raised with us increasing the number of independent members. It wanted to increase their number by agreement between both sides of industry, but that would rather contradict the definition of independent members. The problem arose because, in that council, there have been times when only one independent member has been present to hear the representations of both sides. That is unsatisfactory.

§ Ms. Short
If people are not attending or doing the job, does not the Minister have any powers to get rid of them and appoint more active independent members?

§ Mr. Clarke
We are not necessarily talking about lazy attenders or people who are not normally attenders. somebody is spectacularly lax as happened in the case given by the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright)—he gave a startling account of the affairs of the laceworkers' wages council — it would be necessary for the Secretary of State to appoint some more reasonable members. The best members can sometimes find it difficult to attend, however, and if there are only three members, that risk is increased. Every now and again, only one will be able to attend if there are only three members, but that risk is reduced if we increase their number to five. It is only a discretionary power, and it will be used only in those councils where that problem might arise.
The suggestion of an increase was supported by the chairman of the all-party group on retail trade in a letter to the Secretary of State.

§ Ms. Short
When?

§ Mr. Clarke
That was my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg), who I think was writing as chairman of the all-party group.

§ Ms. Short
When?

§ Mr. Clarke
Recently —after the Retail Consortium suggested that we should increase the number of independent members. That is why the amendment was made. When it was tabled, we did not expect it to be controversial. It ought not to be. The hon. Lady claims that it would somehow pave the way for my right hon. and noble Friend to start misusing his power of appointment and to appoint people who are not genuinely objective or independent.

§ Ms. Short
Absolutely.

§ Mr. Clarke
I refute the suggestion that my right hon. and noble Friend would contemplate doing any such thing. Any Secretary of State has the power, if he wants to misuse it, to appoint anybody he wants as one of the three independent members. We shall try to find conscientious and independent members, and to increase 505 the independent membership of councils in which there might be a risk of the number attending falling too low. On that basis, I commend the amendment to the House.