HL Deb 27 July 1972 vol 333 cc1502-3

[References are to Bill 142 as first printed for the Commons.]

[No. 1]

After Clause 5 insert the following new clause:

Consultation on terms and conditions of employment of staff

" .—(1) It shall be the duty of the British Library Board to seek consultation with any organisation appearing to them to be appropriate with a view to the conclusion between the Board and that organisation of such agreements as appear to the parties to be desirable with respect to the establishment and maintenance of machinery for the settlement by negotiation of terms and conditions of employment of persons employed by the Board with provision for reference to arbitration in default of such settlement in such cases as may be determined by or under the agreements; and

(2) It shall be the duty of the Board to seek consultation with any organisation appearing to them to be appropriate with a view to the conclusion between the Board and that organisation of such agreements as appear to the parties to be desirable with respect to the establishment and maintenance of machinery for the promotion and encouragement of measures affecting the safety, health and welfare of persons employed by the Board and the discussion of other matters of mutual interest to the Board and such persons including efficiency in the operation of the services of the Board."

VISCOUNT ECCLES

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1. Your Lordships will remember that during our debates on this Bill I gave an undertaking to consult the staff on future conditions, and this undertaking is now embodied in the new clause. The clause was proposed in another place by Mr. Moyle and we agreed that it is better to have this matter in the Bill, and that the clause could be inserted at this point just as well as in the Schedule.

Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Viscount Eccles.)

BARONESS LEE of ASHERIDGE

My Lords, as this Amendment is a clarification of a principle on which we are all agreed, I do not wish to detain your Lordships other than to say that we on this side of the House accept it.

On Question, Motion agreed to.