THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONFERENCE

HL Deb 19 March 1958 vol 208 cc289-319

2.56 p.m.

LORD LAWSON rose to call attention to the Report by Delegates of Her Majesty's Government to the International Labour Conference of 1957 (Cmnd. 328); and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I consider it a privilege to be able to ask your Lordships' attention for the consideration this Report from the International Labour Organisation. This is the Report of the three sections who attended the International Labour Conference this year in Geneva. The delegation was formed of representatives of the workers, the trade unions, and the employers and Government representatives, and dealt with a subject that is swiftly becoming of overwhelming importance to this country and to the world. And they made, I believe, a very useful contribution to solving the problem that is emerging.

I have been rather astonished at the attention which has been given to this matter—I do not mean by your Lordships (although there is a very good attendance here today), but rather the general Parliamentary attention. When I first came to Parliament, nearly forty years ago, there was no such organisation as the International Labour Office. There was then a handful of people in the other place and in other parts of the world who were deeply concerned about the treatment meted out to the workers of this and various other countries of the world. But there was very little that they could do. The chief representative in our Parliament was a well-known gentleman, who has now passed away—the late Mr. J. W. Hills, who gave considerable time to this problem. When the First Great War was over, he managed to get governments seriously to consider this matter and set up the International Labour Office, which is now part of the United Nations.

Your Lordship will remember that about two years ago, in 1956, there was quite a wave of concern which went through this country, and indeed through the world generally, about what is called automation. As for those in touch with this matter at the time, and the headlines in the newspapers, there was something like a state of alarm and despondency growing; so much so that at the Conference in Geneva in 1956 the delegations; from all parts of the world asked the Director-General if he would give special attention to this matter and issue a special Report for the consideration of the next Conference. There is, of course, a Report issued every year to which the Conference gives its consideration, but in this year the Report was issued in two sections, the first section of which was devoted to automation and atomic energy. If I may presume to advise your Lordships upon this matter, I would advise anyone who is interested in this subject to study the Report. If we are not interested now, we shall be shortly, because of the general run-down of industry, which I am afraid is quickening. Having read all the information I could obtain about this; matter, I would say that the Report of the Director-General of the International Labour Organisation is the plainest, wisest and best-informed document that has been published upon this subject. As a matter of fact, the event of the Conference and the discussion at the Conference made that very clear.

May I explain to your Lordships exactly what has occurred? Here, in the centre of the world of industry, there is placed this great organisation which, because of its peculiar advantages and its peculiar status, can claim information from all parts of the world, The organisation sends its representatives to visit industrial organisations; and they have available and at their disposal, I should say, the latest information upon everything that affects industry, and also perhaps the widest range of information about it that exists in any country in the world. Our own Ministry of Labour have reason to know of its great value and also of the great ability that is amassed within the four corners of the organisation.

There were gathered in conference at Geneva, among the advanced countries and the average countries, as well as the others, the representatives of no fewer than seventy-three nations to consider this document. The remarkable effect of the debates—I shall deal with it again later—has been that the state of alarm which previously existed has now utterly departed; it has gone. The delegates have come back, in the main, with a grip upon the subject, with a clear vision as to what it ail means and what should be done. So much so, indeed, that in this country a meeting of representatives of the Trades Union Congress, with all the unions represented, has decided (so far as I can gather from Press reports) that automation, instead of being something to be afraid of, ought to be faced and encouraged, on condition that the workmen's representatives are taken into consideration and that certain things are done in order to break the effect of automation upon the workers generally. A very fine debate took place, and to read the report of it is not only to inform one's mind but also to give one some faith in one's own kind and in the future of this country. There are, however, some questions that I want to ask the Government, and, particularly, whether they have given consideration to this matter or not.

I think it is reasonable and not farfetched to assume that we are entering into a stage of increasing and even acute competition internationally. This will undoubtedly speed up the use of mechanical substitutes for human labour, with, possibly, a serious and sad impact upon certain communities. That is to say, we are entering into a period when there is likely to be (if I may use the term) a kind of grab for mechanical processes much in advance of the ones that have been used, so that fewer and fewer workmen will be used in factories. As an American observer says, to quote from the Report: The fact that to-day an imaginative scientist can improvise, in principle, mechanisms capable of carrying out almost any task is of revolutionary significance: in these circumstances, it is not difficult to conceive of a threat to human society as we have come to know and understand it. That is a quotation from the Director-General's Report, based upon a considerable factual knowledge of this matter.

The very great changes that are taking place in industry must be matched by new methods to keep us informed in greater detail and to ensure that plans are ready to make those changes. I want to ask the Minister what steps are being taken by the Government to have abnormal changes in industry registered by the Ministry of Labour and employers? What steps are they taking to obtain this information and to register it, so that the Government will know where they are? Again, what steps are being taken to off-set such changes by re-training in new or allied tasks and generally, by new technical education and re-education, to keep pace with industrial change?

Are the minds of the Government open to possible means to meet this situation, the scale and impact of which on the community equal what is happening in the factory and workshop? In the days between the wars, we waited patiently for the Government to make up their mind what they were going to do about unemployment in the depressed areas. I think that the people of this country were extremely patient during those years—as a matter of fact, I used to be amazed at their patience at the social neglect of great communities. I want to warn the Government, and the country, that that situation cannot be repeated without great trouble arising. The Government have contacts with the employers and with other countries and with the International Labour Organisation, which has the information about this matter. The proposals made in this Report ought to be heeded.

There are some who suggest that all our young people in industries where skill has been abolished by the change to greater mechanical production ought to go back to school; and there are those who propose that even men and women who have spent the greater part of their lives exercising their skill at their trade or craft ought to go back to school. The Trades Union Congress has suggested, like the trade unions in America and other parts of the world, that a reduction in the weekly hours of work should be considered. That cannot be done until we see the effects of the changes that are taking place, and all I am going to say this afternoon is that the Government have been warned by this Report about what we are likely to have to face. Suggestions have been made about how to face it. I hope that the Government have given serious consideration to this matter with a view to future action. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.

3.13 p.m.

LORD CROOK

My Lords, I should like first to congratulate my noble friend on putting this Motion on the Order Paper of your Lordships' House. As one who for over thirty years has been concerned as a trade union official with international labour, I share his surprise that so seldom are there debates on this subject in either House of Parliament. I. join in the praise which he has given to the Report of the Director-General on automation, but I think that we can take some pride to ourselves from the fact that the Report commences on its first page, in trying to see what is the definition of automation and what the Governments have done about it, by referring to the Report of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, on which we had a debate in your Lordships' House on October 23, 1956. I think that that is indicative of the care which successive Governments have taken for joint authoritative action with the employers and trade unions to try to understand what are some of our major industrial problems.

In yet another effective document the Director-General deals with the international aspect of a subject on which we dealt with the smaller national aspect. I note that my noble friend Lord Lawson said that any Member of your Lordships' House would be well advised to read the Director-General's Report. I would go on to say that in my view the Report, or at least a summary of it, is a "must" for every industrial and senior trade union official.

As Mr. David Morse, the Director-General, points out in the Report, it is widely recognised that the key to the labour and social impact of automation and other technological innovations is the rate of speed at which they spread from one undertaking, one industry and one area to another undertaking, another industry and another area, and from one part of the world to another part of the world. If the changes over the last fifty years had been compacted into a period of five years, there would be grounds for grave concern. Whilst it is important to try to assess the rate of speed at which technological changes are occurring and are likely to occur in world economy, the Director-General frankly admits that at the moment we have no real means of knowing how fast these changes will come and how far they will go. He admits, as most of us said in the debate in your Lordships' House, that up to now few have challenged the assumption that the rate of change is likely to be great.

He goes on, however, to use these words, which I think are most important and which I should like to quote: Yet in the interests of caution it might be noted that only a few years ago automation and atomic energy were both commonly regarded as practical problems for the next decade, not for this one. Things have happened far faster than most qualified observers in both fields expected. The need, he emphasises, is to see what is happening, to try to anticipate the trend in the social field and to plan ahead, so that we can meet without confusion the problems that obviously lie ahead of us and are going to arise.

When we debated this in October, 1956, my noble colleague, Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, who introduced the debate on automation, felt that progress would be slow. My noble friend Lord Hall and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and all who took part felt that we were going to move very slowly. We drew attention particularly to the fact that expensive digital computers, on which a good deal of automation depended, were both costly and difficult of production and likely to be few in number in the years immediately ahead. But from 1956 until to-day we have gained more information and there has been greater speed, and we now have a very different picture of the speed with which automation is going to come upon us as a national problem.

The Board of Trade, with excellent foresight, if I may say so, have tried to analyse during the later months of 1957 what the trends are going to be, and we are indebted to the Board, in its journal of February, 1958, for the first really authoritative documentation of the trends of the techniques in question over the years ahead of us. Let us look at the digital computers which we thought were going to be scarce. The Report says: Within the next four years nearly all the major employers of clerical staff, including the distributive trades, banks, insurance companies, hospital boards and local and central government, expect to be using digital computers. Industrialists who expected to use computers for office work in the next five years include iron and steel firms, the oil companies, the nationalised industries, aircraft constructors and various large engineering firms including electrical engineers, scientific instrument makers, cable makers, pump manufacturers, cycle and motor cycle manufacturers, excavator makers and manufacturers of bearings. I have ventured to read out to your Lordships the complete extract for the reason that I think it is only by seeing the wide range of the industrialists who are planning ahead for the next four or five years that we see the nature of the problem that is before us. There, in the office field, where we thought progress would be slow, it is going to be much faster.

What, therefore, about the general position in factories? The Board, in its information, tells us the plans for further automation in the next four or five years both in regard to the provision by extension of existing automatic handling equipment and in regard to the introduction of new equipment; and the lists of the firms in both categories are extensive. Those who will expand from existing automatic equipment to large-scale equipment are our hosiery and knitwear, matches, printing, food and drink industries, mass-producing engineering industries, including those producing electric switchgear and motors, electric heating components, and so on. Those who are going to introduce new equipment, which is probably even more important from the point of view of labour, are the timber, glass, bread, milk, building materials, rubber, iron and steel, and gas industries; and that is leaving out some of the huge, already automised, firms who are going to automate a good deal more, such as the great oil industries. Oil is probably the most automated industry in the world, and certainly it is the most automated industry we have in this country. Any of your Lordships who have found time to visit Fawley will have seen in the refinery there what is probably the ultimate in automatic production. Six men a shift handle equipment which distils 5½ million gallons of crude oil a day; that is, one-third of the total British needs for all oil products are being produced at Fawley by six men a shift.

I think my noble friend Lord Macdonald of Gwaenysgor, who moved the Motion on automation in 1956, and my noble friend Lord Hall who followed him, both of whom have their roots in the coal industry, as has my noble friend who moved the Motion to-day, will be particularly interested in the footnote to the Director-General's Report, where he quotes from Mr. Magnus Pike's book, Automation—Its Purpose and Future, which more clearly than anything I can say to your Lordships shows the trend of the picture to come. Mr. Magnus Pike draws attention to the contrast between these six technicians supplying one-third of the total British needs for all oil products and 270,000 men uneasily labouring at the disagreeable, arduous and dangerous occupation of coalmining in order to supply one-third of the country's coal requirements. I think there is a sobering thought in that, as there is if you go further round Fawley and look at the catcracker, employing only eight men a shift.

But what we have so far in this country, and what we have made known to us from information in the Board of Trade Journal, is nothing to the techniques already established in other countries of the world, which one may find for oneself in the international survey. In the United States at the moment, as I well know, there is a huge concrete plant so completely automatic that by means of one electronic panel any one of 1,500 different mixing formula; for concrete can be operated by button-pushing, the material going in at one end in its raw state and coming out at the other end ready for immediate use. As the Director-General points out in his Report, already in America fourteen glass-blowing machines, each machine operated by only one operator—that is, fourteen operators on each shift for the whole country—produce 90 per cent. of all the glass light-bulbs and all the valves in radio and television used throughout the whole of the United States. Friends of mine who were in Belgium recently saw glass production on the other side—the production of bottles and general glass material—where the solid material goes in at one end, the materials flow on to a furnace, the molten material from the furnace flows through to where the material is blown, shaped, cooled and delivered, without a man touching it at all.

These are some of the signs that this Report indicates to us of the shape of things to come. Fifty years ago anyone who visited the great machine shops of America which were producing motor cars found that 15,000 man-hours were required to produce one simple motor car. Now, for the more complex cars produced in this country, not 1,000 hours of manpower are required. Again, the Director-General gives us these figures—and the figures that he gives in a Report that he wrote over a year ago are figures that much out of date; that is to say, all the time speed is increasing, and fewer and fewer people are required to do the job. In the last two months the Volkswagen firm in Germany have opened their wonderful new works where there is a complete transfer line for stamping and welding bodies in one continuous operation. The three parts of the body come together, and it is possible under modern techniques for as many as eighty spot weldings to be done at one moment. To go hack to America again, in Ford's, the total labour force used on motor cars at the moment is 10 per cent, of the original force, and they are producing exactly double the number of motor cars; in fact, there were 800,000 workers in the United States car industry when I first talked to people in that industry years ago, and they are expecting at the moment to reach at ultimate figure of only 200,000, with vastly expanded production.

I think that point leads us to look for a minute or two at the figures to which the Director-General has drawn attention, showing the difference between the figures of production and the figures of employment. In the United States the production figures since the war are up by 41 per cent. But if you look at the employment figures they are up by 8.3 per cent. There are, in fact, 600,000 fewer jobs with increased production. To us that has many important aspects. There are the people in production in general markets with which we in this country must compete. The future standards of this country, and the people in it, turn on our ability to face up to the challenge which automation is making to us.

The clear discrepancy between production figures and employment figures has been made clear by the Director-General. Ai the risk of boring your Lordships, but in the belief that not all have had time to read all the documents, may I read the important disclosure of Mr. Davie Morse, at page 32 of this Report, where he talks about the apprehension that is evident alike in Commonwealth countries, in foreign countries, such as Germany and in France, and in this country. He says: …facts and figures are adduced to show a clear discrepancy between the expansion of production and the expansion of employment. He goes on: Thus, it seems to be the fear of creeping unemployment, developing simultaneously with rising production and productivity and spreading from one industry branch to another, that is at the root of misgivings about the future. It is cold comfort to reiterate that the record of the past belies gloomy predictions. These apprehensions are real and widespread. The only way in which they cart be countered is by concentrating on the fact—in each country, in each industry, in each undertaking—by giving sustained attention to the changing employment situation, and by careful planning not only to promote full employment and economic growth, but also to foster the social policies which must underlie and accompany such growth. There, I think, we have the crux of our problem. We are back to the kind of problem that we ventured to pose in the debate of October, 1956. I ventured then to refer to some of those social policies. I should be imposing upon your Lordships if I were to repeat the things I said on that occasion, and I therefore venture only to say something in summary in passing this afternoon.

First, I would say that no one looking at the problem of automation should fail to understand that housing must be the key of this situation. Whilst on given production there will be this large cutback in employment in given jobs, I do not myself believe that total employment in this country will fall at all. I believe that the future is bright if we handle it correctly; if we now look at the problem of the next four or five years, and that is why I have ventured to address your Lordships this afternoon. I do not believe that, in a country in which there is the ability on the part of both the employers and the workers which exists here, technological innovations need lead to any decrease in the global volume of employment. But the nature of employment will change, and the place where people will be employed will be changed geographically. As atomic energy becomes available, and as automation develops, factories of a new type will be built. No longer will the employers be tied to build these new factories in given places. They will have the chance of doing exactly what they want to do.

If workers are to go to work at new places; if workers, indeed, are to be expelled, as they will be, from some of the places where they work on automation, they must be given homes to go to. What is more—and I repeat what my noble friends on these Benches and I had to say in October, 1956—if they are displaced after long service with their firms, they must be compensated. The long-term worker is as much entitled to consideration and compensation as the director of the concern. What is more, he must be consulted at an early date. Directors may sit for years making up their minds whether they are going to make this or that change. They must not, when they have taken years making up their minds, expect that in a period of a few weeks the workers so vitally concerned with the decision they have made will themselves be content to have only two or three weeks.

I want to say straight away, since I believe that industrial relations in this country between employers and trade union leaders have reached a higher stage and standard than in any other country in the world, that I know the good employers will all the time carry out the necessary consultation. But at all times, even with legislation, and certainly when we are sitting on occasions like this, we must realise that we are dealing all the time with those who are not up to the higher standards. I think the Ministry of Labour will have to continue its efforts—efforts it has always well made, and keeps on making. We shall have to follow up that film which was recently made and shown on B.B.C. television showing the different way employers react in consultation. We, and they, must all realise, as that film tried to show to the employers of this country, that "consultation" is not another word for giving information. By all means let us have information given in wall posters, magazines, lectures and talks. But it is more than information that is needed; it is consultation that is required.

The workers who are told about automation must be told in good time. They must know its probable effects. Make no doubt about it, the effect on the worker, as compared with the director and the senior staff, is terrific. Shift work stares in the face thousands of people in this country who have never faced it before. The industrial firms in this country who are going to enter into effective competition with other countries of the world will be tempted to see that the price of the machinery they instal is economically justified by using that machinery at least for sixteen hours a day, and probably for twenty-four hours. If that is so, it means shift work; and shift work means a new realignment of the lives of people—we must be alive to that fact. Even the hours at which our public libraries are open may well have to be different, to deal with the leisure and education of the people. The cinemas are already grumbling about the lack of people going into them; and they may need to look afresh at the times they open. I was delighted to see that in the progressive steel industry of Scunthorpe one or two of the great British films are being shown at performances at 9.30 in the morning.

That is the kind of thing we shall have to face—the realignment of leisure opportunity, as well as the realignment of hours. People must know that. They must know what is going to happen to them. They must be able to discuss training schemes for the new schools. If you are going to put off people whose skill is A, and you want people with skill B, you must make up your mind whether those in skill A can be trailed to skill B. You must look at their age group and their type, and get training schemes going. You must discuss with them whether there is a redundancy risk, and, if so, how great it is and how you must plan for it. I am bound to say that in this respect, in dealing with their own servants in the Civil Service, the Government have shown the right idea and have given the right lead.

Again, I was delighted that the Director-General of the I.L.O. could put into his Report quite deliberately, as a footnote on page 65, an extract from Hansard of the other place, a statement of the present Minister of Labour, who said: In general, advance notice is given to my Department by Government establishments, sometimes months beforehand. My officers then discuss the proposed redundancy with the management, and interview and advise the redundant workers in advance of their discharge. I know what goes on in the Civil Service, and I refer to it quite deliberately because the relationship between the staff side of the Civil Service and the official side has produced this kind of arrangement. What is more, I saw (and I commented on it in this House in October, 1956) the way in which the Minister of Labour, when he got the chance—of course he could not until he got the chance—moved in with quick ad hoc arrangements to deal with the redundancy problem in the motor car industry in the Midlands. That is the kind of thing we have the right to expect that employers, in facing up to their responsibilities, will produce in co-operation with Her Majesty's Government.

My Lords, I am afraid that the clock has gone on, and I have been led by the reference which my noble friend made to the Report on Automation to spend perhaps too long on only one section of the document on your Lordships' Order Paper, without mentioning one or two other things in Command Paper 328. It is perhaps a little unusual for a Member of the House to refer to individuals, but if I do so it is because I follow the example of the Report which is under discussion this afternoon. Paragraphs 12 and 13, on page 6, refer to the commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Albert Thomas. That gives me the opportunity of saying, first of all, how long-established this oldest organ of international affairs is; it is the only one which survived when the League of Nations perished. It also permits me to say how much I, and I know some of my colleagues on the other side of the House who were in the other place, and some on this side who were in the other place, knew and appreciated all that that great rugged figure, Albert Thomas, did. I was delighted to be in Geneva last year when the "Art and Labour" exhibition, part of this tribute to his memory, was held, and I was delighted to see that Her Majesty's Government sent paintings, sculptures and objets d'art in order to help in an international tribute.

I was particularly glad, when it came to the unveiling of a plaque by someone representative of the I.L.O., that they chose Mr. David Morse, whose magnificent Reports have already been referred to this afternoon. I am glad that M. Paul Ramadier was there, and more particularly that Sir Guildhaume Myrddin-Evans was there; and I think it would be wrong not to say how much many of us know we owe to the great and loyal servant of the State in the Ministry of Labour, Her Majesty's adviser on international affairs and head of the Governing Body of I.L.O. for all he has done. I am very glad that tribute was paid to the Workers' Vice-Chairman of the Governing Body in this country, Sir Alfred Roberts—he also was there. If, therefore, I have digressed for two or three minutes in an unusual way, it is in the belief that it was the right thing to do on an occasion when a document of this type was before us.

I welcome in the Report the fact that by unanimous vote, apart from the abstention of the United States employers' delegate, the Forced Labour Convention finally went through the machinery of the Organisation and was adopted. Here is an undertaking to suppress and not make use of forced or compulsory labour, whether to cause political coercion, to mobilise for economic development or as a means of labour discipline. Knowing some of the difficulties which beset all sides in industry, I should like to say how glad we are that the three sides could manage finally to reach that conclusion.

Then I welcome the inclusion in the document of the references to those who had given their services so freely, and the tributes, which are paid in generous terms, to the two representatives of the employers and the workers of this country. I think it is again indicative of the kind of atmosphere that we have built up, and are building up, in this country that, in a document which is submitted on behalf of the Government and signed by the official representative of the Government in Her Majesty's Civil Service, it is possible for them to say (and dare I, without wishing to offend any other country, say that I doubt whether this could be said in a Parliamentary document anywhere else in the world) that these persons although appointed by, should be independent of, their Governments, and this independence is expressly enshrined in the Constitution of the Organisation. Sir Richard and Sir Alfred have not hesitated to exercise that independence. We have differed from them on occasions—sometimes from one, sometimes from the other, sometimes from both. But always, even when differing from us, they have shown complete understanding of our position and complete readiness to be helpful within the limits determined by their own views and their loyalties to their own groups. As a result our task has been lightened and our ways made more pleasant. We thank them. I think it was a very good touch to introduce a human note into a formal White Paper presented to Parliament, and I am sure that everybody will be delighted.

I come to one last item in this document to which I want to refer, and that is the paragraph on budgetary considerations. To read the document as it stands would be to believe that everything in the garden about the budget is beautiful. I am sorry to disillusion those of your Lordships who did not know, but the truth is that the continued niggardly attitude of the Government to finances has been the subject of standing disagreement and complaint for years. On behalf of my friends in the Trades Union Congress I want to draw attention to that matter. They have met Government representatives on it on several occasions, but for several years now Her Majesty's Government have combined with the representatives of other Governments to keep down costs to the monetary figure of preceding years.

I have no objection to keeping an eye on the budgets of organisations such as this—indeed it is quite essential. My noble friend Lord Attlee sent me out to America in 1950 for some four months, and among the charges laid upon me was to look through the budget of the United Nations and do all I could to keep it down. I should be the last to suggest that a good watch on the budgetary position of an organisation such as this is not a good thing. But budgeting considerations must never cramp the essential work of the Organisation. This one essential organ, which, as I have already said, managed to live through even when the League of Nations failed, has been the one which has been cramped. It is useless making general protestations about how valuable an organisation it is and what a high regard there is for it unless words are translated into deeds.

To keep the budget down artificially at a time of rising costs—chiefly salaries and travelling and the like—is wrong. It is even worse when there are increased demands due to the economic and social needs of the world, and when the underdeveloped countries of the world are coming in for attention and needing it more and more. I say to your Lordships, quite seriously, that the restriction of finance has cramped the work of the Organisation. Programmes extending over a number of years, which had already been agreed in principle, have been either restricted or abandoned. Budgetary pressure in general by the Governments has been supplemented by action aimed at restriction of activities, which is causing the workers' side considerable concern.

In recent years it has been suggested that the scope of representation on Committees should be reduced. That attitude was repeated again at the Session of I.L.O. which was held in Geneva throughout last week. My Trades Union Congress friends, fresh back from Geneva, tell me that a further restriction was attempted by proposing a change in the Standing Orders which would restrict the effective competence of the Committees. Moreover, there was a determined attempt to cut down the number of industrial Committees to which the world group of workers attaches considerable importance. Indeed, the action of the Government, with other Governments, led last week-end to what, without desiring to be a sensationalist, I would venture to say amounts to a crisis. What happened was this. The usual number of meetings of the Industrial Committee is five in a year. The proposal was to reduce the proposals of the Director-General to a provision for only two meetings during 1959.

Government pressure over the years has irritated the workers' group, and this year it was too much for it and, for the first time, they took action. For years they have supported the budget, to get it through in order to make certain that the I.L.O. did not die on its legs. But this year they felt that, whatever the risk, they had to come into open conflict, and they refused to vote for the budget. At the end of last week the governing body, faced with this clear indication of the strength of feeling of the workers' group, solved the deadlock by a compromise (which, in fact, satisfies no one completely) by giving one more meeting for 1959, so that instead of the five there will be three. Once again the work has been completely slowed down.

My Lords, I repeat that with the good picture that I have sought to paint, the tribute that I myself have tried to pay to the Government, and the tributes that they themselves have paid to those who go to these tripartite discussions, there is this underlying feeling which is no good to relations either in this country or in the other countries of the world. We on these Benches believe that in the current world situation the I.L.O. has a greater importance, and not a lesser one. We are all conscious of the very real dangers of the estrangement of African and Asian countries from the West, as to which, after occupying your Lordships' time for far too long, I need only refer to the Afro-Asian Conference in Cairo and the like. But we on these Benches certainly believe that this country of ours has much to offer to the workers of the world in the field of the experience that we can make available to them. We regret the artificial limits which have been placed on the activities of the I.L.O. by the attitude which Her Majesty's Government have taken up and which I hope they will reconsider before next year.

Before I sit down, I am bound to say that I cannot escape the feeling that in this matter of expenditure on international organs Her Majesty's Government have got their priorities all wrong, for U.N.E.S.C.O. has been given a greater budgetary increase over the last decade than that provided for the International Labour Oganisation. I am second to none in my desire to see culture and the arts brought to the working people of the world; but if my total expenditure is to be limited I would rather provide for the living worker of to-day than produce for the worker of to-morrow a statue of a dead worker of the past.

3.55 p.m.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, I had not intended to speak on this Motion, but after the two extremely interesting and eloquent speeches from the other side I feel that somebody from these Back Benches ought to say something on this Motion. I agree with nearly everything the noble Lord, Lord Crook said, except perhaps his cri de cœur of the last minute—I think his words were that "budgetary considerations are cramping the essential work of the Organisation." That might be said by the secretary of every organisation in this world, every day of our lives. But if, in fact, he is correct in saying that U.N.E.S.C.O. is getting a larger budget, and that the is getting a smaller one, I would support him in the view that that is not a very desirable situation.

On looking through the White Paper, I am glad to see that our delegation voted firmly against the proposal to allow Bolivia to vote in spite of her being in arrears with her subscription. I believe that in these international bodies it makes for a far greater degree of responsibility if we can get that principle more widespreadly held: no subscription, no vote. When one examines the composition of the body and looks at some of the conventions to which it subscribes, certain curious anomalies arise. I see that the Soviet Union is apparently a member of this body. The text of Convention No. 105, which our Government have adopted (it would be interesting to know whether the Soviet has adopted it) reads like this: In Article I each member of the International Labour Organisation that ratifies this Convention undertakes to suppress and not to make any use of any form of force or compulsory labour as a means of political coercion…or as a means of using labour for purposes of economic development, as a means of labour discipline, as a punishment for having participated in strikes and a means of racial…discrimination. From every information I have ever read the Soviet Union is guilty under every one of those indictments, and I should be most interested to know from my noble friend the Minister whether in fact the Soviet Union has signed Convention No. 105. If so, it is one of the greatest pieces of hypocrisy that I have ever heard in this world.

The noble Lord, Lord Crook, rightly pointed out that we are passing through an industrial revolution and that its manifestations are shown in such matters as atomic power and automation. Automation in itself need not necessarily involve a great loss of jobs; but the question of timing arises, because to prepare for automation many people have to work on the machinery, and then, once it is installed, the employment is considerably less than it was. Since man's natural inclination is to be alternately optimistic and pessimistic—hence we get the natural trade cycle—this question of automation can tend to reinforce the intensity of the trade cycle; because when a man is optimistic he wants to buy machinery and so on for the future, and that creates a boom in capital goods. When the boom in capital goods is finished, the employment in making those capital goods is also finished; automation is installed and the employment is then less than it would have been had there been no automation. The result is that the effect of automation, unless otherwise corrected, is a tendency to accentuate the natural trade cycle. We can do a great deal of the necessary correction by means of our monetary policy, but as this is not an economic debate I will not go into that aspect now. But I am hoping to hear most interesting things from the Radcliffe Committee on the subject of limiting the total volume of credit and so on, which will tend to even out these matters and discourage mass optimism and mass pessimism which is in fact the trade cycle.

Undoubtedly where we get the transfer of jobs, as there will be, we shall get areas which will have more than their fair share of jobs taken away: they will become what we call "depressed areas." In modern time it seems easier in many cases to carry work to the workers, rather than the workers to work, and I feel sure that so far as the lighter types of industry are concerned we are on the right lines in trying to do that; and there are many arrangements, with Government and local authority aid, to do that kind of thing. But I am not quite so sure how far we have got the manual worker as accustomed to travel to his work as the "white collar" worker is. The "white collar" worker thinks nothing of an hour's train journey to his work, and I believe that we shall at some time have to think about similar journeys for the manual worker.

But as the manual worker's journey will not be from the suburban "dormitory" into the great city, like that of the "white collar" worker, we may have to think about special trains running on rather peculiar cross-country routes. The lines and engines are there, and it is just a question of making the necessary arrangements. Somehow, however, we have to get people more mobile; and we have to get industry mobile also. That means housing. I agree with the noble Lord that there is need for a greater volume of housing in this country—I would suggest houses built without subsidy of any kind and made available to rent by local authorities. If it is a fact that we have rather over- estimated our needs in capital expenditure on the power industries, I hone that we shall be able to make up by spending more in the fields of transport and housing.

Reading a document of this kind, one inevitably thinks of overseas competition, because that is one of the chief purposes of our belonging to an Organisation of this kind. We in this country who have a high standard of living want to support any organisation which can try to increase the standard of living of our competitors. That is the crude principal reason why we like to belong to such organisations. Though Japan has not so far been in our markets the problem that I, for one, expected her to be, there are other countries which have sprung up—in particular Hong Kong—which are formidable competitors; formidable because they have an enormous population all clamouring for factory jobs. Although I understand that conditions in the best factories, the "showpieces", are very good, I have been told that if one goes into the back streets the same conditions do not apply. If we are to encourage fair conditions of labour and so on throughout the world, I believe that we might start in our own "backyard". I am not prepared to "swallow" free trade with countries having an Oriental standard of life and Occidental machinery, and anything we can do to improve the standard of life in these Oriental countries is naturally one which will redound to the standard of life of our own workers. For that reason, at any rate, the International Labour Organisation has my support.

4.06 p.m.

THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD MANCROFT)

My Lords, the International Labour Organisation, whose affairs we debate this afternoon, is one of the very few international organisations to survive the pandemonium of the Second World War. I believe this is the measure of its worth and of the support it has always been able to command from Governments of widely differing political complexions and from working people and employers throughout the world. In the thirty-nine years of its existence, the I.L.O. has steadily extended its influence. It has left its stamp on the social policies and social legislation of countries at every stage of political development. In this way the I.L.O, has laid the foundations for the establishment of better working conditions and industrial relations and a proper appreciation of trade union rights. This has led to an ever widening area of co-operation between labour and management throughout the world. Despite the political tensions caused by the reentry of the Communist countries into the I.L.O., the Organisation has continued its progress. As the Report which we are debating this afternoon makes clear, much useful and constructive work continues to be done.

The steady expansion of the membership of the I.L.O. from fifty-three to seventy-eight in ten years, with Malaya and Ghana as the last two entrants, and the increasing number of conventions ratified by member States, provides further evidence, I believe, of the growing authority of the I.L.O. and its steady advance in the field of social progress throughout the world. The importance of the I.L.O. and its work has been recognised in this country from the outset. British Government representatives played a leading part in the discussions which led up to the establishment of the organisation. The United Kingdom has remained continuously in membership of the Organisation and successive Governments, without exception, have given their full support to the Organisation and its work.

This afternoon we were treated to a very remarkable speech by the noble Lord. Lord Crook, which I hope will be widely read. I agreed with pretty well everything he said except his final condemnation of Her Majesty's Government for insufficiently generous support. The noble Lord talked about the money U.N.E.S.C.O. was receiving, but I would remind Jinn that settlement of priorities between various international organisations, and the subscriptions they receive from us, is not entirely a matter for Her Majesty's Government. I would ask your Lordships to believe that the Government's attitude towards the financing of the I.L.O. has not been niggardly. It is quite right and reasonable, as my noble friend Lord Hawke has pointed out, that we should examine critically the budgets or these international organisations. Between 1949 and 1958 the budget of the I.L.O. has increased from just over 5 million dollars to just under 8 million dollars, and I think that increase speaks for itself.

With regard to the reference of the noble Lord, Lord Crook, to what happened at the governing body of the I.L.O. last week, a budget of 8½ million dollars was voted, an increase of 6 per cent. over 1958. I do not think this really represents a slowing down of activities. At any rate, we have done our best. We have paid up "on the nail". Our percentage is approximately 10 per cent.; and the only reason why it has gone down a point or two this year (if that is what is worrying the noble Lord, Lord Crook), is that more people are contributing. We are not niggardly towards the Organisation and we fully realise its value and why we should support it.

As one of the ten member States of major industrial importance, the United Kingdom Government hold a permanent seat on the governing body. Both there and at sessions of the International Labour Conference their representatives play a prominent part in the affairs of the Organisation. It is a well established tradition that our own Minister of Labour and National Service attends the Conference each year and contributes to its debates. The speech delivered last year by my right honourable friend the Minister attracted considerable attention both here and abroad. Representatives of British employers and workers have also maintained an active and constructive interest in the I.L.O. Delegates and advisers, nominated in agreement with the British Employers' Confederation and the Trades Union Congress respectively, have always played a prominent part in all sessions of the general Conference.

I think it is a pity that the I.L.O. and its work receive comparatively scant recognition in this country, and therefore I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, for once again giving us the opportunity of considering its activities. I commend to your Lordships in particular, as all other speakers have done, the Report of the Director-General of the I.L.O.—a highly readable document and a lesson to some of us in the art of printing a document so that it may be read without discomfort and eyestrain. I especially commend those parts which deal with what has been in the forefront of our debate this afternoon—namely, the implications of what (for want of a prettier word) we call automation. It is in my opinion an excellent analysis of the problems involved, in themselves probably as important as any with which the I.L.O. has had to deal.

The Director-General selects four guiding principles for special emphasis. First, he says we should welcome technological change. To do so implies a sense of confidence and security in the future. It involves overcoming the fear of change which, he says, seems to be widespread. Secondly, we must prepare for technological change. This is not difficult, if the need for doing so is fully appreciated. It is for management to take the initiative and, with confidence, to open the door for consultation with the workers. It is for the workers and their representatives to examine in a reasonable spirit the changes proposed, and to provide safeguards which promote rather than restrict technological progress. It is for the Government to pull together the many strands of change and to make up and analyse the whole pattern; and on this basis to form a clear idea of the problems which may arise. It is for the three parties to work together, to plan ahead so that changes are made in each undertaking, industry and area, with proper regard to the human factors involved.

Thirdly, he says we must distinguish between long-term problems of adjustment to technological development and short-term problems of a transitional nature. The former, of course, have been with us since some "bright boy" invented the wheel. Over the years our industrial society has learned how to deal with these problems. In contrast, we may need to take special measures to cope with the immediate repercussions of technological changes, either generally (should change come very rapidly) or in particular industries or localities or groups of workers. The object of such measures is simply to prevent special hardship and to ensure that the burden of change falls fairly, and not on those least equipped to carry it. Fourthly, we must reinforce our efforts to promote cooperation between labour and management in planning, introducing, and carrying through technological changes. Those are the views of the Director-General, Mr. David Morse. They are endorsed by Her Majesty's Government. Her Majesty's Government are in point of fact already tackling this problem in much the same way as the Director-General had suggested. As early as 1954 Her Majesty's Government had foreseen the need for an objective survey of all the available experience (I refuse to call it "know-how"), and had arranged for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to prepare a Report. This Report has been discussed and endorsed by both sides of industry represented on the National Joint Advisory Council. Thus by a rational and dispassionate examination of the facts, the automation scare (one may almost call it "panic") which so exercised some folk a year or two ago has now been put into its proper perspective.

Your Lordships will recall that the steps which the Government were then taking to tackle the problems arising from automation were given to the House some eighteen months ago. Your Lordships were told that the Government were encouraging technical and technological education and training to meet the growing demands which automation will create. The Government described the powers which they already had to help such workers as might be made redundant (that means, thrown out of work) by the introduction of automation, to find other work; and the encouragement, which the Government were giving to employers (one or two of whom, I may add, needed a little prodding) to discuss these problems with the trade unions. I need not now repeat what we then discussed in some detail; but your Lordships will wish to know that we have continued vigorously in this field.

The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, has rightly emphasised the importance of keeping in touch with new developments in automation as they occur I entirely agree. We did not regard the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Report as the last word. In the autumn of 1956 a further inquiry was initiated by the Board of Trade into the extent to which automation is likely to be introduced into industry in the next few years and the effect it may have on the demand for labour and capital investment. Admittedly, nothing very startling emerged from this Report, but I think its chief value lies in the fact that we have here up-to-date information from industry itself on the problems which industry expects to encounter. For instance, although it was found to be difficult to assess accurately the effect of new automatic techniques on the size of our labour force, it seemed obvious that the trend would be towards a decrease in the number of unskilled men and an increase in the number of skilled technicians of all sorts. Some firms expected to reduce the size of their labour force, some to increase it in order to keep pace with increasing production, and others to maintain their existing labour force while increasing their output. If workers became redundant on a particular process, it would be possible either to redeploy them within the factory, or not to replace wastage, or, quite as likely, to retain them because of the generally increased level of activity resulting from greater production brought about by the increased use of automation.

The Government have not pigeonholed this Report. We believe that the more people know about automation and its effects, the more likelihood there is of our being able to obtain full benefit from technological improvements with the least possible hardship. A summary of the Board of Trade Report has already been published in the Board of Trade Journal. It has been discussed by the Engineering Advisory Council and circulated to the National Joint Advisory Council. The more publicity we get for this kind of objective examination of the facts, the better. We do not intend to stop there. Further research is being carried out under the auspices of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. My right honourable friend the Minister of Labour and National Service is, of course, keeping a close watch on the employment aspects of new technical developments. He receives regular reports through the nation-wide network of the Ministry of Labour's offices on all developments likely to affect employment, including the application of automation in industry and commerce.

Your Lordships have expressed concern, naturally, about the joint effect of recent increases in unemployment and automation on our labour force. I do not think: that we ought to exaggerate the difficulties. Her Majesty's Government have already expressed it as their considered view that despite local difficulties in such places as North Wales, Ulster and some parts of Scotland, which, as your Lordships know, are receiving special attention, the general level of employment in this country will remain high. We maintain the view that so long as there is a high level of employment in this country, we need not fear that technological changes will in general create serious problems of employment. It may be necessary for some workers to change their jobs and for others to learn new skills; that is necessary—indeed, inevitable—in an expanding economy. Changes in the constitution of the labour force are going on all the time.

The noble Lord, Lord Crook, referred to the motor industry. Your Lordships may be interested to know that in the motor industry—the very industry in which the automation scare was raised in 1956, and where we know millions of pounds have been invested in recent years in new machinery—employment has actually increased since the summer of 1956 and at the same time the output of the industry has expanded enormously. This is, I suggest, a vivid lesson for those who believe, like their ancestors, the Luddites, who maybe threw the first spanner into the first works, that the expansion of the automative process is a danger to the wellbeing of the country. On the contrary, I must emphasise once more that these new developments are welcome.

Our whole industrial history has been a struggle to produce goods more efficiently. The faster our productivity rises, the faster our standard of living will rise and the easier it will be to carry on a flourishing export trade. We cannot afford to fall behind our competitors. We must take advantage of every aid science can bring to industry, so that our stuff is as good and as cheap as that of our rivals. The policy of the Government is to maintain full employment. To do this, as the noble Lord, Lord Crook, also pointed out, we must have an expanding economy and one which is vigorously and aggressively competitive.

As we all know, we must earn enough abroad to pay for the imported food and raw materials we need in increasing quantities. We therefore encourage all new developments that will help to "wipe our rival's eye" in the market-place of the world. Only in that way can we ward off the real dangers which threaten us. While delicate adjustments will obviously be called for as a result of the introduction of automation, its development is vital to our future prosperity. Our fear should be not that automation will hurt us, but that we may fail to introduce it fast enough to keep pace with our rivals.

I now wish to turn to what the Director-General refers to, in Chapter XIV of his Report, as the "Implications for Management and Labour". It is now widely recognised, and implicit in our debate this afternoon, that the introduction of automation into a factory cannot be regarded as a purely technological changeover from the old equipment, methods and organisation to the new. Inevitably there are human implications to be considered and given possibly as much attention as the technical and financial ones, if not more. The problems will, of course, differ from case to case. The Director-General says that these technological changes: open up new areas for labour-management consultation, and they reinforce the need for labour-management co-operation. He also states that the maintenance of good relations is essential to the making of the transition and as a foundation for the future. Noble Lords have expressed similar views during this debate and during most discussions on the social implications of automation. I do not think that there are many who would challenge them.

In recent years there has been a growing recognition, from the point of view of industrial efficiency, of the importance of good relationships between management and workers, and of arrangements for joint consultation as a means of fostering such relationships. Too often, however, this concept receives little more than lip service. Unless a well-established basis of mutual confidence exists between management and workers, even small changes in working conditions are unlikely to be accepted without a row. When, however, major changes such as we have had in mind this afternoon are contemplated, closer co-operation between management and labour is imperative.

How is this co-operation to be secured? There is no simple answer. That mutual confidence which is essential, is much easier to discuss than to achieve—I myself spent five years as chairman of a joint advisory council and I am well aware of that fact. It has to be built up by sustained efforts over a long period: it cannot be generated quickly when new processes are about to be introduced. Too often, joint consultation is confined to arguments about the pattern of the new canteen curtains or whether the works outing should be to Blackpool or Morecambe. Where, however, consultation with employees is part of the accepted organisation of a firm, and where in consequence labour and management relationships are good, change in major processes and in working conditions can be introduced without friction.

I believe, therefore, that the development of effective arrangements for joint consultation in a firm as a matter of course will go a long way towards ensuring that the necessary co-operation will be forthcoming when major changes are envisaged. The "boss" who consults his workers does not derogate from his leadership, nor is the workman who responds a Quisling. The workers must know in good time what changes are in prospect, how they are to be introduced and what effects they are likely to have. Many employers, of course, already take special care to give such information to their employees.

The lesson that Field Marshal Montgomery taught the Eighth Army has not been wasted. Experience has shown the value of imparting information and of full consultation in allaying the fears—sometimes the justifiable fears—of those who see their jobs and their skills imperilled by new jobs and new skills which they may not themselves be able to undertake. I know that many employers also readily admit that this consultation is not a one-sided exercise. They recognise that they may well be helped by the views of the men and women whom they consult. The workers, in turn, when they are consulted, are encouraged to feel proud of the advances made, or about to be made, in the firm in which they are employed.

Although, as I have told your Lordships' House, we expect that automation will lead to expanded opportunities for employment, I am afraid that there must be exceptions in individual firms, leading to redundancies and transitional periods of unemployment. Here again, many firms have clear policies of what action would be taken in such contingencies, and the workers know exactly where they stand and how they would be treated. More and more employers are realising the value and importance of forethought and imaginative planning in relation to such human problems, and the need to define their policy clearly and well in advance.

With the object of making these principles more widely known, my right honourable friend the Minister of Labour and National Service has recently issued to many employers a booklet, entitled Positive Employment Policies. This gives examples of practices which a number of firms have found to be effective and acceptable. Although this booklet has not been prepared in the particular context of automation, it does illustrate the various points which the Director-General makes in his Report. It also (and I hope your Lordships will take note of this) illustrates the concern which the Government have in this subject. Some of the examples quoted in this booklet give statements of policy which reflect the attitude of the employer towards his employees and ensure that they know and understand their terms of employment. Others describe policies and practices in training staff, in consultation, in dealing with redundancies and in giving financial information to employees.

LORD LAWSON

Before the noble Lord leaves that matter, I should like to thank him for the full explanation he has given. I was listening closely to hear whether any firm arrangement has been made for regular meetings on a national scale between the Government, the T.U.C. and the representatives of the employers. The noble Lord has given us the general statement about the necessity for meeting on both sides in the country, but is there any arrangement as to the Government and the T.U.C.?

LORD MANCROFT

So much runs through the strain of all negotiations between the Government and the T.U.C. that it is bound to crop up on all occasions. But whether any specific plans have been made for a conference on this subject alone, I do not know; and I must ask the noble Lord to give me notice of that question.

As I was about to say, we have touched this afternoon on only two or three of the items which appeared on the agenda of last year's International Labour Conference. There are many others not of such direct interest to this country. The Conference, for instance, discussed the abolition of concentration camps, debt bondage and serfdom, and the abolition of forced labour—though I can assure my noble friend Lord Hawke that the Russian Government have not ratified Convention No. 105. The Conference also discussed such matters as safety in mines, housing construction, the education of workers and anti-trade union legislation. Here we were able to offer some guidance from our own wide experience. To us, the first Industrial Revolution is a thing of the past. To some of the newcomers to the I.L.O. Conference its counterpart, as my noble friend Lord Hawke suggested, is a very present trouble.

Again, I think we were able to offer some help. Our own special interest, as this debate has shown this afternoon, is the second Industrial Revolution. And that Revolution is the recognition of human values in industry. We ourselves are moving forward from a position where we concerned ourselves with the establishment of reasonable standards of working conditions to one where we are more concerned with, the development of the satisfaction of human beings in their work. The familiar question. "Are you happy in your work?", should be much more than a mere catchphrase.

Of course, we regard automation, with its new ideas and new methods as a potential danger, but it is a danger we intend to overcome. And we have not done too badly so far. We no longer regard automation—properly understood and properly undertaken—as a threat to men's livelihoods. We regard automation as something even more important—a threat to poverty; this threat Her Majesty's Government will do everything in their power to increase, for to our way of thinking, poverty anywhere constitutes a threat to prosperity everywhere.

LORD LAWSON

My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.