EMERGENCY POWERS ACT 1920

HL Deb 15 February 1972 vol 328 cc17-30

3.10 p.m.

EARL JELLICOE rose to move, That the Emergency Regulations 1972, laid before the House on Wednesday last, shall continue in force subject to the provisions of Section 2(4) of the Emergency Powers Act 1920. The noble Earl said: My Lords, your Lordships will recall that last Wednesday I repeated a Statement by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary announcing the proclamation of a State of Emergency as a result of the very sombre situation with which we were faced arising from the coal strike. It was agreed through the usual channels that we should deal with the humble Address formally, and that we have just done. I gather, however, that your Lordships would wish to have a wide-ranging debate on the emergency with which we are faced, the Emergency Regulations and the orders made there-under. I also gather that possibly the Opposition may take the exceptional step, at least in your Lordships' House, of dividing on those regulations. That being so, I propose to cast my remarks fairly wide, although I propose to be reasonably brief.

My Lords, the regulations made under the Emergency Powers are similar to those moved on previous occasions. They vary in one or two matters, which I will mention. I would not wish to weary your Lordships by going through the regulations one by one, and your Lordships may feel that it suffices if I refer to those regulations which have a particular relevance to the present emergency, or those which are novel. As to the changes. Regulation 11 is new and gives the Secretary of State for the Environment power to exempt drivers from the statutory provisions governing their hours of work. This would enable greater flexibility to be introduced, provided always—and I emphasise this—that the drivers themselves were willing, in the movement of essential supplies. I understand that difficulty is being experienced, for example, in collecting milk for processing and distribution.

Regulation 17 is of crucial importance at present, in that it relieves the Electricity Boards of their statutory obligations to supply electricity. Until this regulation came into force, the Boards could make power cuts only if their output was insufficient to meet the demand at that time. It is now possible—and this is being done, as your Lordships are only too well aware—to make power cuts in order to conserve stocks of fuel. There are important new provisions also to which I must draw your Lordships' attention in Regulations 17 and 18, the latter referring to gas supply. A wide power of entry is given to persons who may be authorised by the Secretary of State to enter premises in order to ensure that orders under Regulations 17 and 18 are effective. I trust that your Lordships will agree that these powers are necessary, particularly in order to preserve public safety where the gas supply may be in danger.

I should also like to invite your Lordships' particular attention to Regulations 21 to 24, which enable the appropriate Minister to regulate the supply of fuel. It is under Regulation 21 that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has made two orders restricting consumption of electricity for advertising display and floodlighting, and for non-domestic heating.

There is one further specific matter concerning the regulations themselves on which I am aware that some concern has been expressed in some quarters. It is alleged that Regulations 31 to 35 may in some measure have altered the law relating to picketing. I can give a definite assurance that this is not the case, and I would in this context direct your Lordships' attention to the important proviso to Regulation 37, paragraph (1). This makes it clear that a person shall not be guilty of an offence against any of these regulations by reason only of his taking part in lawful picketing. Thus, nothing in Regulation 31, which deals with acts of sabotage, or in Regulation 32, which deals with trespassing and loitering, in any way alters the position of those who participate in peaceful picketing.

My Lords, I would not seek for one moment to minimise the gravity of the situation which now confronts our country. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry made it clear in another place last night that even if there was an immediate resumption of work in the mines we should still be faced in the immediate future with the gravest possible disruption of our electricity supplies. As I understand the position (and as in all situations of this kind it is one which tends to fluctuate, or in which one's evaluation of it or the experts' evaluation of it may tend to fluctuate, plus or minus, almost every day, though it is of course one which the Central Electricity Generating Board is keeping under continual review) the stock situation in coal-fired power stations—and these represent some 75 per cent, of our generating capacity—is at present as follows. Today, there are something over 4½ million tons of coal in the hands of the Generating Board. Of this total, about half cannot be used at the present time because of picketing and because the power stations have been deprived of supplies of lighting-up oil. Thus, there is only enough coal available at the present time for about—and I stress "about"—two more weeks of present demand. If supplies of lighting-up fuel were to be resumed, then this period could be extended by another 10 days.

In this connection, your Lordships will be aware of the reports in to-day's Press—and I have seen other reports, or a gloss on these reports, on the tape—of the National Union of Mineworkers taking action possibly against mass picketing. I would hope that in the national interest this will enable full use to be made of existing stocks of coal. In the meantime, it behoves all of us, wherever the option is in our own hands, when our finger may be on a switch that still works, to practise the most rigid economy. In this context, I should like to pay tribute, if I may, to the substantial contribution which domestic and very many commercial and industrial consumers have already made towards reducing the load on the grid. These economies have already reduced that load by something of the order of between 20 per cent, and 30 per cent. I should like to take this opportunity, my Lords, to reinforce the appeals which are already being made to ail electricity consumers that they should from now on exercise the most stringent self-discipline in order that such output as is available can be directed towards the essential services, towards the hospitals and towards those in greatest need.

In addition to the stocks at power stations to which I have referred, there are also some 4 million tons at pitheads. If, as I hope we all hope, there is a settlement and an early resumption of work, it will become of really paramount importance to move these stocks from the pitheads to the generating stations. Such action would win the nation light and heat and time On the other hand, it is regrettable that, because of the failure to maintain adequate safety measures in some pits, our rate of recovery after a resumption of work will be slower than would otherwise have been the case. Of the pits, over 200 have not been maintained in a proper state. In these circumstances, whatever our feelings may be about the rights and wrongs of this dispute, I am sure that all of us will wish to pay tribute to the really enormous efforts which the supervising staff have deployed in trying to keep these essential safety measures going.

Be that as it may, I cannot, I fear, stress too strongly that whatever remedial measures are taken now, there will necessarily be a further period of restriction of supplies which is bound to last for some weeks after the resumption of work. The implication of that further restriction for the domestic consumer and for industry must be all too clear to all of us. It means, my Lords, that within the next two weeks or so there could well be further drastic cuts over large areas of the country, blacking out whole cities and giving no priority treatment to any consumer. This situation will be reached if and when the output from the coal-fired generating stations continues to fall, and the total generating output falls significantly below the level of the reduced demand. Therefore your Lordships may reasonably ask—and many people in the country are asking —why it is that we find ourselves, almost overnight, up against a position which is likely to entail not only the most serious inconvenience to the man in the street, more especially to those members of our community who are elderly or infirm, but also a situation which carries with it the gravest possible economic implications for the nation.

My Lords, I do not think it would be appropriate for me, at this moment of delicate balance, to comment on the merits of the case. Nevertheless, I recognise that there are those who, while they feel the recent offers of the National Coal Board to be good, if not generous, at the same time criticise the Government for moving too slowly and without due preparation and consultation in declaring a State of Emergency and in bringing forward these Regulations and the Orders made under them.

On the score of lack of preparation and lack of consultation, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry made it crystal clear yesterday evening in another place that for the past year or so all those most intimately concerned with this matter have been carrying out a detailed examination of the steps which would be necessary in an emergency of this kind. It has been said that there was no proper consultation with industry and with other consumers. My Lords, this is simply not true. Consultation has been taking place for some months now, and the mere fact that the Department of Trade and Industry was in a position at the end of last week to send out no less than 20,000 individual letters to individual firms indicating what was required of them in the present situation is evidence that this is so. And again, much though we may be inconvenienced by it, and much though we may deplore its necessity, I think that most fair-minded people would concede that, by and large, the rota system is working pretty well—in circumstances, admittedly, of extreme difficulty, but in a way which clearly does not imply lack of prior planning and preparation.

The second main criticism levelled in this context on the Government is that we moved too slowly in asking Parliament for these crucial emergency powers. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary explained yesterday how wide and deep these emergency powers are. A glance at the Regulations will suffice to show that this is in fact the case. I submit to your Lordships that no Government would go to Parliament for such powers unless and until they were completely convinced that theme was no other option open to them. But, my Lords, it had been our hope, certainly during this past week or so, that it would be possible for the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Coal Board to conic to an agreement on the substantially increased terms offered by the Coal Board. As I said in cur debate two weeks ago, it was our hope that early agreement could be reached on a settlement fair to the miners, fair to the Board and fair to the community as a whole. I am quite certain that for the Government to have asked for these sweeping emergency powers on the eve of this possible negotiation would have been held by many—wrongly, but perhaps understandably—as pressure and provocation. I concede that these are difficult areas of judgment, but it was our judgment that earlier action might well have nipped in the bud that possibility of settlement that still, unfortunately, eludes us.

Nevertheless, my Lords, I would grant that in one respect we must agree that we did not perhaps take as stringent and pessimistic a view of the situation as events have shown to be justified. No one, I think, could have fully anticipated the extent and intensity of the picketing, and the degree to which this picketing would affect the ability of the C.E.G.B. to generate the power which the nation needs. In view of the considerable concern and extensive publicity which has been given to picketing in this emergency, your Lordships will no doubt wish me to say something about it. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary said in another place, peaceful picketing is lawful, and as long as it remains peaceful it may extend beyond the movement of coal to the movement of other commodities. Nevertheless, it must be recognised that in this dispute the extent of picketing has been unparalleled in recent years. Most of this picketing has been peaceful and lawful, and I am glad to say that the National Union of Mineworkers have made it crystal clear that they are opposed—as I am confident every single Member of your Lordships' House is opposed—to the use of violence and intimidation in any degree. It is of course difficult to judge—you can pick your eyewitnesses, and you can take your choice—where intimidation begins and where lawful picketing ends. Nevertheless, there have clearly been instances of intimidation, of picketing which is demonstrably not peaceful and of illegal picketing.

I know your Lordships recognise that in a situation of this kind the duty of the police is one of very great delicacy and difficulty. On the one hand, they have a duty to ensure that the highway is not obstructed, that law and order is maintained, and that those who wish to go to work are not forcibly prevented from so doing. Equally, they have a duty to ensure that those who wish to dissuade peacefully other persons from going to work or from delivering supplies are entitled so to do. In a situation of this kind, when tension and tempers may be high, this person or that person may possibly make an error of judgment. But, my Lords, I am confident that this House would agree that, by and large, our police forces up and down the country have, as we have learned to expect from them in good times and in bad, carried out their duties impartially and with sound judgment. I know that this was a matter which was worrying your Lordships when we last discussed this strike. Some noble Lords asked me to represent their concern to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. They would doubtless have noted that he has brought to the attention of the police the representations which were made to him recently by mining Members of another place, that there should be close liaison between the police and the representatives of the N.U.M.

I trust that your Lordships will acquit me of in any way minimising the gravity of the situation with which we are confronted. There is all the distress and discomfort which the denial of light and heat involves for all of us. For some of us it may perhaps be no more than a frightful nuisance. But for those of us who are sick or infirm, or old, it can mean very great hardship. Again, there are the crippling effects which the present shortages of power will have on our economy. It will entail acute difficulties for many firms, and for some firms it could well, I fear, mean that they will go out of business. It will, at least until we can all get the economy moving forward again, mean lower profitability, lower investment and, therefore, a delay in that industrial recovery and economic resurgence which is, I believe, now ours for the winning. It will almost certainly involve adding some millions, I hope very temporarily, to the many who are already unemployed. All these, my Lords, are tragic effects of a tragic dispute which we can no doubt explore further in our debate to-morrow. But there are two other side effects on which I wish, in conclusion, to touch.

The first is that nothing has made me more unhappy about this strike than the increase in social tension within our nation which it has occasioned. And, returning yesterday from leading an inter-Party Parliamentary group on a short trip overseas, I must frankly say to your Lordships that I have been worried at the shadow which this dispute and its side-effects cast on our reputation and our standing abroad. Feeling these matters as I do, I can only express the hope that with the appointment of the Court of Inquiry under the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, will very soon come a return to work and a settlement. I had hoped that the return could precede the final settlement, but this is not ground on which I wish to tread this afternoon. However, I cannot refrain from saying that, given the undertakings extended by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment, and by the National Coal Board, such a return in the very near future, if not now, could not be disadvantageous to the miners and could only be to the advantage of the community as a whole of which they are very much members.

My Lords, I hope that I have not dealt with these Regulations too cursorily. I hope, too, that this debate, like our last debate on the coal strike, will be conducted in such a way as to increase the chances of that early settlement which the nation so desperately needs. I hope, too, that in the final analysis noble Lords opposite will not press this issue to a Division. Whatever they may feel, whatever any of us may feel, about the rights and wrongs of this issue it is surely, clear beyond peradventure that these Regulations are now necessary. Certainly any member of your Lordships' house who wishes to argue that they are overdue is not in a position to oppose their confirmation now. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Emergency Regulations 1972, laid before the House on Wednesday last, shall continue in force subject to the provisions of section 2(4) of the Emergency Powers Act 1920.—(Earl Jellicoe.)

3.32 p.m.

LORD CHAMPION

My Lords, like the noble Earl the Lord Privy Seal, I propose to be reasonably brief and certainly do not intend to discuss the Regulations in detail, for they appear to me to show, in the main, the well-established precedents for Regulations of this sort and clearly are the kind of Regulations that one would expect to be laid in the circumstances of the emergency which is existing in this country. With the noble Earl, I would pay tribute to the restraint exercised by the police when they have had to face men who are angry about things which affect them very deeply. I would support also his statement that picketing has in the main been peaceful. I hope that it will be peaceful from this day onwards; but I sincerely hope that we shall not have picketing for very much longer—that is, of course, in connection with the dispute we are now discussing.

I congratulate the Government on one thing; that is, on securing the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, to head the Court of Inquiry into this disastrous dispute. He, I am sure, is acceptable to both sides, for his impartiality was amply demonstrated when a year ago he chaired the Court of Inquiry into the electricity supply dispute. The Report of that Court made it quite clear to me that the noble and learned Lord and his colleagues then were not by any means creatures of the Government. Neither did the Court headed by the noble and learned Lord fall over itself to placate the trade unions. The facts, the circumstances, of that dispute and everything about it were most carefully examined; the resulting Report was recognised as fair and just and the dispute was resolved. We can, I think, confidently await the outcome of the deliberations of the present Inquiry. I am hoping that the Court will be able to present its Report in a much shorter time than it did in connection with the electricity dispute which I have mentioned. In that case, the Court of Inquiry was appointed on December 31, 1970, and did not report until February 5. We cannot afford to wait a further month and a few days for the Report of the Wilberforce Court of Inquiry; and I certainly welcome the statement made by the noble and learned Lord that we can expect them to act expeditiously in their consideration of the matters which are now before them.

My Lords, from this Box I am not going to disagree with the decision to advise the powers-that-be to declare that a State of Emergency exists, for the obvious reason that a state of emergency undoubtedly exists and is probably the most serious (excepting for the years of the 1939–45 War) since the year 1926. We have arrived at a serious moment in the history of this country. It was reported yesterday that 800,000 men were laid off; because of this situation, 800,000 men did not go to work yesterday. The production of those men has been lost to the country and lost to us all. It is suggested in one newspaper, I see, that the figure of 800,000 may be an underestimate; and when that figure is added to the massive figure of the existing unemployed it means that some 2 million people were qualified for the dole yesterday and the loss of production was so great as to be in my opinion positively catastrophic. The hardship is enormous and will continue to be enormous until this dispute is settled and normal working is resumed; that is, if, for so many people, normal work can ever be resumed. Clearly, many of our industries, and particularly the smaller ones that are balanced on a knife-edge, will find that these power cuts will tip them off their precarious balance and never again will their doors open. This I fear may be the case. I have heard such reports from the West Midlands and from my own part of the country, South Wales, and I imagine that what applies in those areas applies equally in many parts of the country where we have this unhappy situation. Workers in some of these industries look forward to a very bleak future indeed because this crisis may tip those industries off the balance which has previously kept them alive—even if only just alive.

My Lords, it is—it must be—part of the function of Parliament to examine the failures of the responsible Government and to show the public where the blame lies for permitting the drift to this appalling situation. What we have seen over the past few weeks has been a decision by the responsible Government to stand back and hope that the market forces would play upon the situation and produce a settlement. Nothing of the sort has happened. The tragic result of that miscalculation is upon us to-day: we have these Regulations, as we had that Humble Address, before us. The Government seriously miscalculated the mood of the miners and miscalculated, too, the mood of the unions outside the mining industry; namely, the transport workers, the workers on both road and rail. They should not have miscalculated in that way because their statement had been that they unequivocally supported the miners' claim for justice in their dispute with the Coal Board. The Government also miscalculated the length of time that the electricity industry could continue to keep their plants running on the existing coal stocks. As a result of those miscalculations, the Government failed to impose fuel rationing in the early weeks of the strike. The result has been that there are now barely two weeks' supply of coal to permit the present limited electricity consumption.

Not only did the Government mismanage the supply of fuel available but although the supplies were fast being exhausted they made no attempt to ration electricity supplies. Last Thursday power cuts had to be enforced because there were no longer enough stations working to meet the demand, but it was left until Friday before official rationing came into being. What sort of preparation had the Government made to meet that situation? The noble Earl told us that they had had some forms printed and some letters ready to send out. That was not enough. Is it not the case that the decision was announced and sprung upon industry in such a way that industry itself had not been able to make the necessary preparations? No wonder The Times said on Saturday last: Millions of workers will be sent home next week as industry and commerce begin to implement the Government's emergency orders. There was confusion throughout the country yesterday as companies tried to sort out the meaning of the orders. Mr. Campbell Adamson, Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry, gave a warning that industry was facing 'a very serious situation'. He had not expected such severe measures. He—the Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry—had not expected such severe measures. Why was he not told? Why was he not consulted long before Friday last?

In the same article it was later stated: In all sectors of industry and commerce confusion over the effects of the Government's orders was mixed with anger that the cuts had been forced on the country without sufficient consultation. The only people who could really consult industry were the Government of the day, the people who ought to have known what the situation was, the people who surely ought to have been advised by their officers and to have taken a decision which would have ensured that they did in fact consult the people who complained in The Times and elsewhere that there had not been sufficient consultation. The anouncement of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on Friday last came as a shock, as Mr. Adamson makes clear in the words that: he had not expected such severe measures. The blame for mishandling the whole situation must to some extent be placed fairly and squarely on that Minister's shoulders. Everything one reads and everything one hears seems to indicate that no meaningful consultations had taken place. And we read this morning that only yesterday did Sir John Eden, Minister for Industry, see Sir John Partridge to discuss the situation. The report in this morning's Daily Telegraph tells us: Sir John Partridge, President of the Confederation of British Industry, and Mr. Campbell Adamson, Director-General. yesterday discussed the power crisis with Sir John Eden, Minister for Industry. They asked that the three days a week of electricity supplies allowed under the Government's measures should be consecutive so that industries operating 24-hour processes or 12-hour heat treatment cycles could benefit. The C.B.I. chiefs also pressed for changes in the timing of cuts. 'The cuts are at present arranged on a basis which does not fit into the normal shift system', said a C.B.I. statement. 'We also pressed for more information to be provided so that many of industry's uncertainties could be dispelled.' Surely these are matters that ought to have been the subject of negotiation and discussion three weeks ago, and certainly not later than the date upon which it became clear that the transport workers and the railwaymen were solidly behind the miners. They could see what was coming. They must have been able to foresee it; but they did nothing. They were inactive. They hoped that something would turn up, instead of making preparations of the sort that any Government ought to make in these circumstances. At last the Prime Minister enters the field, and I see it is reported that he is to see Mr. Victor Feather and leaders of the Confederation of British Industry to-day. In the worst crisis to confront this country since 1926, the Prime Minister is to see the leaders of industry some six or so weeks after the crisis began—four days after the delayed announcement by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry of the shock cuts to be made in electricity supply for industry. It just was not good enough and it is not good enough for a Prime Minister and a Government of this country to behave in such a fashion. Neither was it good enough to leave it so late in appointing a Court of Inquiry in the case of the dispute which is the cause of this crisis.

Mr. Carr must, with the advice of his excellent officers, have known that this dispute was not going to be settled by negotiations early on: the sides were too far apart. But he, like the rest of the Government, hoped that something would turn up. The Government were warned. time after time. The speeches of my noble friends, Lord Blyton and Lord Taylor of Mansfield on January 31—men thoroughly versed in the industry, with a feeling for it—gave an indication to this House and surely to the Government of the day of how the miners felt. The efficiency of the picketing of the, miners added to the writing on the wall, but the Government did not heed. The noble Earl, the Lord Privy Seal, did his best to excuse the failure of the Government, but I must say that he did not convince me. I doubt if he convinced the House, and I am certain that he would not convince the leaders of industry. The Government are to be indicted on the grounds of failure to take adequate steps to settle the mining dispute, failure to appreciate the rapidity with which the disastrous cuts in electricity supply would be upon us, failure to bring industrial leaders into consultation when rationing became inevitable and failure to ration fuel supplies weeks ago.

The whole history of this crisis and its development is one of incompetence, mismanagement and a failure to safeguard the country's interests. As such, my Lords, we shall exceptionally—and I use the word "exceptionally" deliberately—vote against these Regulations. On Thursday last we had decided not to vote, but the announcement towards the end of last week and the total failure of Ministers to reply adequately to the charges of my right honourable and honourable friends yesterday in the other place has forced us to decide to register our profound disapproval of the handling of this crisis by this Government.