WAGES COUNCILS BILL (Hansard, 8 December 1948)

§ LORD CHORLEY

My Lords, the Bill for which I am asking a Second Reading this afternoon is designed to effect improvements of a procedural character, although of some importance, in the machinery for establishing and regulating statutory minimum wages. It is a very short Bill and I think is quite uncontroversial. It comes to your Lordships' House in exactly the same state as it was introduced in another place. The Bill has two main aspects, the first relating to road haulage wages legislation, under the Act of 1938, and the second relating to the Wages Councils Act of 1945. The amendments which it effects are the result of experience in working these two Acts. First with regard to road haulage wages legislation, the Bill, by Clause 1, would substitute a Wages Council for the Road Haulage Central Wages Board established by the 1938 Act. That Act was found to be rather 898 complicated. In particular it established no fewer than eleven area boards, and the substitution of one Wages Council would obviously be a great simplification of that position, and it would also lead to a substantial saving in time, because it would cut out some of the intermediate machinery. The Road Haulage Central Wages Board, and also the National Joint Advisory Council, have expressed complete sympathy with this proposal, which I am sure your Lordships will think is very reasonable and necessary.

With regard to the Wages Councils Act of 1945, there are quite a number of procedural amendments introduced to that Act. Your Lordships will remember that this is the Act which superseded the earlier legislation relating to trade boards. Since the first Trade Boards Act was passed, the situation, in which there were a number of sweated industries, has materially altered, and the industries in which these bodies are established are now reasonably organised. But it has been found that one or two amendments are necessary. I do not think I need draw your Lordships' attention to them in detail. They are there, and if there arise any points for discussion, we can discuss them on the Committee stage. I am sure you will agree that this is a useful piece of additional legislation, designed to assist the co-operative work between one side of industry and another, and I ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading. I beg to move.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE

My Lords, in one or two sentences I would like to say that we on this side of the House welcome this Bill, and we shall give it every facility to pass through its various stages. It is an expression of the spirit of co-operation in industry that we all wish to see extended, in that it comes as an agreed measure by both sides of the industry and independent members. It will have one tremendously beneficial effect: it will speed up wage negotiations, delays in which, I think, were largely the cause of the road haulage strike from which we recently suffered. I feel that it can do nothing but good. In co-operation 899 we can all go forward; divided we cannot. This is a measure which will help us to go forward together.