§ After Clause 88, page 66, insert the following new clause:—
§ Wages and conditions of employment of persons employed in connection with public service vehicles.
§ ("(1) The wages paid by the holder of any road-service licence to persons employed by him in connection with the operation of a public service vehicle and the conditions of their employment shall not be less favourable to then the wages which would be payable and the conditions which would have to be observed under a contract which complied with the requirement of any resolution of the House of Commons for the time being in force applicable to contracts with Government departments.
§ (2) Any organisation representative of the persons engaged in the road transport industry may make representations to the Commissioners to Use effect that the wages paid to, or the conditions of employment of, any persons employed by the holder of any road-service licence are not in accordance with the requirements of the preceding subsection, and if the matter in dispute is not otherwise disposed of it shall be referred by the Minister of Labour to the Industrial Court for settlement.
§ (3) If it is decided by the Industrial Court that ally person has been guilty of a breach of the provisions of this section he shall be liable to be dealt with in all respects as if he had failed to comply with a condition attached to his road service licence.")
EARL RUSSELLMy Lords, this clause provides that it shall be a condition attaching to any road service licence that the person operating the service shall pay wages and observe conditions of employment not less favourable than those laid down by any Resolution of the House of Commons for the time, being in force. That, I believe, is the technical form of what is generally known as the Fair Wages Clause. Subsection (2) provides that any organisation representative of the workpeople may make representations to the Commissioners that the wages or the conditions of employment do not conform with the Fair Wages Resolution and if the matter is not otherwise disposed of it is to be referred by the Minister of Labour to the Industrial Court for settlement. This is a clause which it is thought desirable to put in, and not without reason, because in this industry there are, I am afraid, some cases in which very inadequate wages are paid at present to the people who work in it. I think that probably I should not be going beyond the truth if I said that most of 888 the large and important employers in the industry would be perfectly willing to have a clause of this sort in the Bill.
§ Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Earl Russell.)
§ VISCOUNT BRENTFORDMy Lords, this is really a very important clause. It is a clause importing into the carrying on of ordinary commercial undertakings the Fair Wages Clause which has been established for some time past in regard to Government contracts. This is an extension far beyond anything that I ever heard of while I was in the other House, and I know of no Act of Parliament which has enforced the Fair Wages Clause on a private undertaking. It is quite true that these undertakings run public service vehicles and carry members of the public as passengers, but you might apply exactly the same argument to every kind of business. Every cinema proprietor invites the public into his building. Therefore you might say he should have a Fair Wages Clause there. You might apply it to every shop. Every shopkeeper when he opens his shop invites the public into that shop, and therefore you might suggest with quite as much reason as applies to this clause that every shopkeeper should have a Fair Wages Clause between himself and his employees. Really there is no earthly reason why, if this clause is passed in its present form, you should not have a universal Fair Wages Clause.
§ VISCOUNT BRENTFORDNow the noble Lord is giving the whole case. "Why Not?" That is, of course, the noble Earl's view.
§ VISCOUNT BRENTFORDNo, but I do not want to put in a clause which would fetter employers and employed in the means of bargaining which they have had for centuries past. I suggest that the noble Earl, by introducing such a clause into this Bill, which has nothing to do with Socialistic ideas or practice—if he will forgive me for saying so; I do not want to be heated in my observations—is doing something which is in no way justified. So far we have carried through this Bill with the sole desire on both sides to do what is best and wisest in the 889 interests of the travelling public, and with the object of getting a real codification of motor transport law on the Statute Book. I do appeal to the noble Earl not to attempt to force this clause upon us. It was not in the original Bill. There was a paragraph in the Bill which he somewhat wickedly left out a few minutes ago dealing with conditions of labour.
§ VISCOUNT BRENTFORDIt was in Clause 69, subsection (3) (a). That dealt with the conditions under which persons are employed and laid down that they should not be such as to endanger the safety of the public or impair the efficiency of the service. Your Lordships passed that clause in this House six months ago. That, I think, is a reasonable condition, that the conditions of service must be such as not to interfere with the safety of the public; but the present clause goes far beyond that. I am very sorry that I should have to raise this matter at a time when the Government have not carried out their first duty of keeping a House for the purpose of passing this very important measure. But at the same time I feel that we cannot leave it in the Bill. I hope your Lordships will refuse to pass this clause, and as I do not want the noble Earl to be in difficulty because of having allowed his cohorts to leave so early, I would make the offer that we are ready to discuss with the Government any amendment of the clause.
EARL RUSSELLMy Lords, I have not got cohorts to call upon, as the noble Viscount seems to think. Some of our exiguous number of supporters have gone away, but may I say that in this matter the noble Viscount almost seems to be plus royalists que le roi? He objects to this Fair Wages Clause and talks about a Socialist matter being introduced into this non-contentious Bill as if he had never heard of it before. The Fair Wages Clause has been enforced by the House of Commons for a quarter of a century or more in regard to contracts made by Governments and it is not a new idea. He says it has never been applied to private work, but a similar provision was put into the Housing Act in 1924, in relation 890 not to work done by the Government but to work done by everybody connected with housing under the Housing Act.
§ VISCOUNT BRENTFORDIf the noble Earl will forgive me for interrupting him, I think it should be remembered that there were Government grants in that case. If the Government make grants they are entitled to put in any clause they like. There is no Government grant here.
EARL RUSSELLThere was a Government grant in that clause and the same of course is true of the other precedent—the Sugar Beet Act, 1925. There was a Government grant there. But if there is no Government grant given direct to omnibus services, there is something very much like it in the Road Fund contribution to the roads on which they run. That seems very near a Government grant. The real question is, however, whether you should, or should not, have any restrictions at all upon the wages paid to these people. I think he agrees that there should be some restriction on the wages that are paid, but he does not approve of this form of imposing it. If we are going to have any restriction at all, is it not better to have one that has been in operation for a very long time and with which all parties are familiar, such as the Fair Wages Resolution of the House of Commons? I hardly know any other way in which you could do it successfully. The difficulty of inserting any other description is that it is hard to know what it means. The Fair Wages Resolution, I believe, amounts to saying that the wages are usual and proper among good employers.
When I said that the noble Viscount rather stood alone in this, I would remind him that this clause was passed in another place without any division of opinion among members of the other House. I do not think that the noble Viscount, if I may say so respectfully, is very wise to oppose it in this House when it has received unanimous approval in another place. His action is almost certain to be misunderstood. I am quits sure that he does not mean in any way to attack favourable and reasonable payment of workers. We must also remember that the public safety is involved in this matter. These drivers are in the same position as engine- 891 drivers, although they are not members of a very strong trade union, like the National Union of Railwaymen.
§ EARL STANHOPEThe Transport Workers' Union.
§ VISCOUNT BRENTFORDThey have their trade union.
EARL RUSSELLThere is a trade union for some portion of the industry, the London omnibuses, for instance, but there is none that by any means covers all the public services in the country. It is desirable that the public should be protected against underpaid men being employed, quite apart from any other argument. As the noble Viscount truly says, we are not in a position even to take a Division this afternoon, but I hope that he and his friends will see their way not to press their opposition, which is, I think, almost certain to be misunderstood.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Lords, I do not think the noble Earl realises the kind of request that he has made to your Lordships. I do not want to arrogate to ourselves any more credit than we deserve, but it must be admitted that, in allowing the Government to pass these very important provisions in the circumstances in which the House is placed, we are making a very considerable concession.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYWe have allowed a large amount of legislation to go through with very inadequate consideration. I have no doubt that noble Lords who have been able to apply their minds to the subject have been able to consider these points, but the vast mass of your Lordships are evidently debarred by the conditions of the season and the length of the Session from giving them the attention which they deserve. In these dying days of the Session, in a Bill that has been thoroughly considered in your Lordships' House, the Government come back months afterwards with a totally new provision which violates one of the main principles of private enterprise, and one which has been made the subject of repeated legislation, and they say that in this case they propose to extend the Fair Wages Clause to private enterprise.
892 It is impossible, I think, for your Lordships to agree in those circumstances. How can we allow a great change in public policy to be established in such conditions as are before your Lordships at this moment? It is not that I wish the wages of the workers to be less than they ought to be. For my part, if I could only persuade everybody to work as hard as they can, I wish them to have the highest wages possible. But to ask your Lordships to agree, in these circumstances, to this great departure from the previous precedents of legislation is a serious matter. I venture to think that all the noble Earl's precedents broke down. They were not really material to the actual point in this case. I am sorry that the decision should take place in a House as small as this, but I think the noble Earl may be well assured that if, instead of the members now present, there were a House of three hundred noble Lords, the decision would be just the same.
§ On Question, Motion negatived, and Commons Amendment disagreed to accordingly.