COAL MINES BILL. (Hansard, 24 June 1930)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD SANKEY)
My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Reasons for disagreeing to certain of the Lords Amendments be now considered.

§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (LORD PARMOOR)
My Lords, before that Motion is put it would be convenient and, I find on reference to precedent, in accordance with ordinary practice, if the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition could reasonably give us some indication as to the probable discussion on the Commons Amendments. It would be a con- 60 venience, of course, to all quarters of the House if the Leader of the Opposition could indicate, or partly indicate the action he proposes to take to-day upon the Commons disagreement with the Lords Amendments. I do not now refer to the Amendments which have been accepted: a large number of your Lordships' Amendments were accepted, not merely drafting Amendments, but what I would call Amendments of real form. I want to avoid at this stage any statement which could in any way provoke discussion or difference of opinion. Subject to an Amendment which stands in the name of my noble friend Lord Thomson, which was printed two or three days ago, it will be necessary for the Government to ask this House not to insist upon those Amendments with which the Commons have disagreed.
The Government are, and must remain, responsible for a Bill of this character—responsible for both its form and its procedure. They regard it as a measure of constructive legislation intended to organise and stabilise the coal industry, which suffers especially from depression and unemployment at the present time when industrial depression and unemployment are exceptionally and unfortunately widespread. They cannot, having regard to that responsibility, assent to any Amendments which, in their opinion, would militate against or render less effective ale proposals they have made for this great purpose. One Amendment has been handed in by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury). It is the only Amendment of which Notice has been given to us. I will say nothing inure of that at the present moment, except that when we come to the appropriate Clause it will be carefully discussed and considered. I do not propose to say anything more at this stage. I hope the noble Marquess will be able to tell us something as to the course which the discussion will probably take.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
My Lords, I readily respond to the invitation which the noble and learned Lord, the Leader of the House, has made to me. I agree with him that it is a convenient practice—a practice of very long date—to use this particular Question put from the Woolsack in order to have some general observations upon the course which, in detail, the House 61 is going to be asked to pursue, and that is the suggestion made by the noble and learned Lord at the present time. He has told your Lordships that the Government, because of their responsibility for the Bill, are not able to agree to any of the Amendments of your Lordships' House. That is only representing the views expressed in another Place. But it is difficult to see what function, in the noble and learned Lord's judgment and in the judgment of his colleagues, the House of Lords is to perform at all. I can understand, if we had sent a number of Amendments some of which were accepted and some of which were rejected, that that would be a matter of discussion, but there would be no cause for complaint—

§ LORD PARMOOR
A large number were accepted.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
None of the least importance. The Government have been advised that the proper way to treat your Lordships' House is to adopt the attitude that this House is not entitled, upon a Bill of this kind, to insert Amendments of any importance. I very much doubt whether any of the noble Lords who sit upon that Bench really agree with that doctrine. I suspect it is a view imposed upon them by their colleagues in another place.

§ LORD PARMOOR
Do not let us be under a misapprehension. I never stated that doctrine, nor could I.

§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY
I think I interpret the noble and learned Lord aright: he does not agree with the doctrine which his friends in another place pursue. I know that there is, of course, a body of opinion in Parliament and in this country which think that your Lordships' House ought to be content gradually to become obsolete—that is to say, that as the years pass by it should gradually become of less and less importance, its work should command less attention and, finally, it should disappear as it were by inanition. That I believe to be the sort of view which prevails. Now, my Lords, that is a view which it is quite impossible for us to accept. It is not that we are concerned at this moment to defend the particular constitution of your Lordships' House; that is not the point. To concede that your 62 Lordships' powers ought to be treated as obsolete is not open to us, because that is as much as to say that a Second Chamber is not required in this country at all.
By all means, if the country so decrees, reform your Lordships' House—by all means. We have asked for it over and over again. But so long as your Lordships' House exists we must do our work. We must perform the functions of a Second Chamber, and part of the duty of a Second Chamber is to insert such Amendments in legislation as they may consider absolutely required by the interests of the country. That is what we have done, and there is nothing (may I say?) in the present experience of Parliament and of the conditions of Parties in another place which would lead me to think that a Second Chamber is less necessary than it used to be. On the contrary, everything I see of what passes convinces me that, provided our work is done with a proper sense of our responsibilities and with every desire to be as conciliatory as we can—if our work is done in that way, we shall be doing no more than our duty.
Now, in regard to this Bill, I think that after the experience of some months of discussion in Parliament and in the country we may say it is a thoroughly unpopular Bill. I do not believe it is approved by any Party. I do not think there is much enthusiasm for it on the Benches opposite. I do not think that in another place the Labour Party very much care about it. It certainly is no child of the Liberal Party, and as for the Conservative Party, we think it a thoroughly bad Bill. That is the Bill which has been passed by very narrow majorities in another place and it has been passed at the instance of what I think must be called now a very weak Government. In those circumstances surely I shall command the assent of almost every member of your Lordships' House when I say that the functions of your Lordships' House are not to be treated as obsolete.
How, then, are we to approach the Amendments from that point of view. We made a very great concession—not an improper concession, but a very great concession—when we agreed to the Second Reading of the Bill. There is no doubt that, but for the political circum- 63 stances at the time, the decision of the electorate at the last Election and the strong opinion in the Labour Party of the necessity for legislation on this sort of line, your Lordships' House would certainly have rejected the Bill upon Second Reading. But we thought—and, if I may say so respectfully, your Lordships thought rightly—that this was not an occasion to throw out a Bill on Second Reading, having regard to what happened at the General Election. We passed the Second Reading and all we have tried to do is to mitigate the mischief which would arise under the Bill and, above all, to protect the interests of individuals who might be damaged or of the minority who might be damaged by the operation of the Bill. I hope your Lordships will consider the Amendments from that point of view.
Of course, I am entirely in the hands of your Lordships, but I think it might probably shorten the proceedings if I were to indicate broadly the view we take of the Amendments without going into too much detail. I will take the Amendments upon which I have observations to make in the order in which they come. There is first the question of the district levy. In our judgment the district levy, especially after the disappearance of the national levy, is quite indefensible. It is in the nature of a provision to give a bounty upon the export of coal, the kind of policy which we denounce when it is pursued by any other country. It definitely throws an extra burden upon the wretched home consumer—I do not mean merely the private consumer, but the industrial consumer, who, we know, is suffering under the tremendous pressure of bad times—and in the form of a district levy it is especially inequitable as between district and district. In those circumstances, we must do what we can to protect those who are likely to be the victims of such an inequity. I think we shall ask your Lordships to insist upon that Amendment.
Then I come to the Amendments in Clause 5 which were put in, I think, at the instance of my noble friend the Earl of Halsbury with the support of my noble and learned friend Viscount Hailsham. I will not go into the details, but those 64 Amendments were designed to protect individuals and other interests that might be unfairly treated but for those words, and to give them a right of appeal to the Railway and Canal Commission. That again, I would suggest to the House, ought to remain in the Bill.
Then we come to a very important body of Amendments, especially interesting, I believe, to the Liberal Party, having to do with amalgamation. I ought to say in the first place that I have no doubt that the Amendments that your Lordships put into that part of the Bill were the right Amendments, and the Government would have done much better to accept them. But there is one difficulty about the amalgamation proposals, and that is that in any criticism of them that we make we run the risk of seeming a little unsympathetic to the reorganisation of industry and to what is called rationalisation. That is very far from being the view of the Party to which I belong or of my noble friends who sit around me. We are all in favour of a proper reorganisation, and therefore we approach these particular clauses with very great care.
The Amendments which your Lordships put into those clauses ran upon two different lines. They were not inconsistent, but they followed two separate ideas. First there was the substitution of the Board of Trade for the special Reorganisation Commission, and in the second place certain directory words were put into the Bill which were to guide the action of the Railway and Canal Commissioners who, as your Lordships know, were supreme in the last resort. Personally I think that those words which protect the schemes from being put into force without reference to the advantage which they are likely to confer upon the country and without reference to the interests of individuals—the words which are going to safeguard the Bill from those dangers—are much the more important of the two sets of Amendments which your Lordships put into those clauses. I believe the Board of Trade will be a better authority than the Reorganisation Commission, but I do not think that this is vital.
On the other hand, the other point does seem to me to be vital. I think that for amalgamations to take place without reference to the question 65 whether they will really be commercially of advantage and will really reduce the cost of production, and without reference to protecting the interests of anybody who is oppressed or damaged by the operation of the schemes, raises a very much more important point than the other. Having regard to that point of view, I think we shall suggest to your Lordships that the House should not insist, upon those Amendments which put the Board of Trade in the place of the Reorganisation Commission, but should insist upon the directory words which will guide the Railway and Canal Commissioners when they come to their decisions.
I pass from that point to the most important Amendment of all, which is familiarly known as the spread-over Amendment. It is very difficult, of course, to find out everything that goes on behind the scenes, but I am given to understand that the original resolution of the miners against the spread-over clause was carried by a very small majority. However that may be, there is no question whatever that a large section of the miners not only desire but desire passionately that the spread-over Amendment should be inserted in the Bill. That is very natural. They believe, and I think rightly, that in certain areas, if the rigid 7½ hours per day system is enforced, there must be a reduction of wages, and possibly they believe—at any rate it may certainly be the case—that in some instances mines very near the line of bankruptcy will be shut down altogether in consequence of the rigid 7½-hour day unless there be a reduction of wages. Having those dangers before them, they ask us to make the Bill elastic, so that, without throwing any further burden upon them than the rigid 7½-hour day throws upon them, they may be allowed to spread over the hours and so make such an economy in the working of the mine that the working expenses will not be increased, and therefore there will be no question of a reduction of wages or of shutting down the mine altogether.
This was so reasonable a demand that, when it reached your Lordships, there was hardly any difference of opinion that the spread-over Amendment ought to be inserted in the Bill, and accordingly this was done. I cannot say that I 66 think that your Lordships have probably changed your opinion on that question, but there is just this to be said on the question of form. The idea of the spread-over Amendment is essentially that there should be a genuine option in its favour, not only by the employers but also by the miners in any particular district. That is of the essence of the Amendment. There is no desire to force the spread-over system upon any district. It is only if both parties want it and are quite willing. A representation has been made to me that, as the Amendment was drawn when it was sent down to another place, the miners were under a kind of apprehension that they would not in truth have a real free option as to whether they would accept the spread-over system or not, and that they would be under a sort of moral coercion which might render them not free agents in the matter. If that be so, it is the last thing, I am confident, that your Lordships' House will desire. We want them to be absolutely free agents, and therefore, when this consideration was urged upon us, we thought that we should be most willing to accept any change of form in the Amendment which would render this feeling less likely to occur.
For that reason I have ventured to place upon the Table of your Lordships' House—and it is now in your hands—an Amendment, standing in my own name, which is designed, after very careful thought and consultation with others, to remove this suspicion. Perhaps I ought not to anticipate the exact provisions of the Amendment. The object is to prevent the men from feeling that they are under any coercion. They act under a central authority and are, therefore, completely free agents. With that change, which I hope I shall be fortunate enough to persuade your Lordships to adopt, I think we may safely insist upon the policy contained in the spread-over Amendment. Upon those terms I think we can deal with the Bill.
May I say in conclusion that we have no desire to be unfair to the men? It is almost impossible to conceive how people can be so unwise as to think that there is any prejudice in this House against Labour. Why should we be prejudiced against Labour? We have worked with labourers on our own 67 estates all our lives. We understand them, I venture to think, better than most other people do, and we do desire to make the legislation passed by Parliament fair. We do desire that the miners should have every opportunity which we can furnish them with by elastic provisions, to have an arrangement of which they can in their hearts approve and which it will be in their interests to possess. For these reasons we are going to ask your Lordships to insist, not upon all of your Amendments, but upon some of them. I have not dealt with the Amendments which we propose to abandon. There are one or two of importance which, when we come to them, we shall not ask you to insist upon, but those which I have mentioned we shall ask you to re-enact in the Bill either fully or partly. I hope I have sufficiently explained to the noble and learned Lord opposite and to the House the course which we think the House might properly pursue.