§ 3.35 p.m.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, if it is convenient to your Lordships, I will now repeat a Statement that is being made by the Prime Minister in another place. It is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a Statement.
"I invited the National Executive of the National Union of Mineworkers to meet me at 10 Downing Street yesterday. My right honourable friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Employment, and my honourable friend the Minister for Industry were also present.
"I explained to the National Executive the economic background to the Government's counter-inflation policy. I said that if the country was to maintain growth and a high level of employment and to take advantage of the oportunities which were open to us in export markets, we needed all the production we could get, and particularly in present circumstances the maximum production of coal.
234 "I reminded the National Executive that the Government had demonstrated its confidence in the future of the industry by committing to it over £1,100 million of public money: £450 million to write off capital debt and accumulated deficit, and nearly £700 million to bring it up to date and improve the contribution which it could make to our prosperity.
"I pointed out to them that, if one compared average weekly earnings in coalmining with average weekly earnings in manufacturing industry on the basis adopted by the Wilberforce Report, the National Coal Board's full offer would more than restore the relative position of the coalminers established as a result of the Wilberforce recommendation.
"I also pointed out that a settlement under Stage 3 would not only restore the relative position of the coalminers and give them an improvement in their real standards of living, but would also ensure that these advantages were not subsequently eroded; whereas a settlement which went beyond Stage 3 would inevitably lead to a free-for-all which would erode their gains as surely as the free-for-all after Wilberforce eroded the gains they secured from that.
"Thus a settlement under Stage 3 could be expected to help the coal industry to recruit and retain manpower —the need for which was strongly argued by the National Union of Mineworkers Executive.
"I made it clear that there is no question of a settlement outside the terms of the Pay Code for Stage 3 which has been approved by Parliament.
"Following our meeting, the National Executive held a private meeting at 10 Downing Street and decided to maintain their overtime ban. I hope none the less that they and their members will give serious consideration to the points which I put to them. In the meantime, the Government will continue to take whatever action is necessary to conserve the nation's energy supplies."
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, I thank the noble Lord, and since I do not want to initiate a debate, as has happened only too often recently on Statements, I shall make only a short intervention. 235 Clearly, we must view with dismay the fact that it has not been possible to arrive at any settlement. This is clearly an industrial matter which ought to be settled by the National Coal Board and the Union, and a lengthy political discussion at this stage would not further industrial peace, though I am bound to say that the actions of the Government, particularly in regard to the quite disastrous Industrial Relations Act, have immeasurably worsened the atmosphere for negotiations of any kind. But since, clearly, a settlement is necessary if the momentum in relation to the present energy crisis is to be maintained, I should like to ask the Government what further proposals they have for discussions to try to reach a settlement. May I ask the Government, if a settlement can be reached with the National Coal Board, who are the final arbiters, the Pay Board or the Government?
§ LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEYMy Lords, I too wish to thank the noble Lord for repeating the Statement and to express my distress, and that of my noble friends, that no agreement has been reached. It is, I think, the obvious result of the disastrous Stage 3 which my Party, and particularly my honourable friends in another place, said at the time was too lax in many respects and far too rigid in this particular one. Since then we have had the oil crisis. The problem is not that there is a ban on overtime; the problem is that people are leaving the coal mining industry. There has always been a case for saying that the miners are a very special case; there is now doubly so. Will the Government not realise that their Stage which was bad to begin with is now completely out of date? Will they not rethink it so that they can achieve a settlement?
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, for the way they have received this Statement. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said that a settlement is clearly necessary, and he asked what further proposals for discussion there should be to reach a settlement. My Lords, I think that it is really too early to say that yet. There must be a little time for reflection, at any rate, before further steps are taken to convene 236 another meeting. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, asked who is the final arbiter in a case like this, the Pay Board or the Government. The Pay Board must of course approve any settlement that is made, and to that extent they are the final arbiter. This is the way in which Stage 3 and the previous stages were intended to work.
I agree with him that further political discussion at this moment would not be likely to further the prospects of a settlement and I share with him dismay at the absence of a settlement at the present time. But, my Lords, I think he will agree that the Prime Minister did everything he could to put the issues as he saw them before the miners yesterday and, equally, that he listened to what the miners had to say.
The noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, said that he regarded Stage 3 as disastrous. But we are only just entering on to Stage 3 and it can undoubtedly be made to work, if there is the will to work it. Moreover, I must point out that, so far as this particular dispute is concerned, Stage 3 allows the miners to come out of it remarkably well in comparison with others. The noble Lord shakes his head in disapproval of that, and he may even think that the miners ought not to come out well. But surely, with a view to getting a settlement, it was desirable to make certain that the miners should be able to regain their place in the queue; and that is exactly what has been done.
§ LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEYMy Lords, may I just make my position clear? I think the miners should certainly regain their place, but I do not think that the guidelines laid down by the Statement and by Stage 3 are the right ones for the miners, because what we have to stop now is men leaving the industry. That will not be done by destroying their position; it will have to be done by going further.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I think it is dangerous to conclude that the miners who are leaving the industry are leaving purely because of the pay and conditions of work. They are also, I very much suspect, leaving because at the present time the continuity of work is not sufficient. It is noteworthy that they started to leave in September, before these issues arose.
§ LORD BALOGHMy Lords, does not the noble Minister realise that the Government, by concentrating on wages and salaries and freezing dividends, still have not got an all-round settlement on the basis of which some sense of equity can be established? And when the noble Lord the Minister refers to the Prime Minister's efforts to put the case, does he not realise that the Prime Minister was grievously wrong in putting so much emphasis on wages and other earned income? He has had all these enormous profits in the property market, and the matter goes back now three years. We have been preaching development, pleading with the Government to have a consensus, and the Government said that they did not wish to have any. Now they have made "U"-turns almost like a merrygo-round—it is not a "U"-turn, it is a merry-go-round—yet in the basic social consensus they have not done anything at all.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I think the noble Lord really is beginning to argue this matter on political grounds, which is just what his noble friend suggested should not be done. My Lords, these are to a large extent matters of judgment. but there is no doubt that any settlement must be within the framework of the counter-inflation policy, a policy that has been devised in a way that was intended to be fair all round and indeed is accepted as fair by a very large proportion of the people of this country.
§ BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGERMy Lords, the Government have asked the Pay Board to produce a report on anomalies, relativities, in a rather wider sense than their report on anomalies already published, and to produce this before the end of the year. Would it not be possible for the Government to press the Pay Board to expedite that report in the hope that it might open the door to a really practical solution?
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, it must be subject to full and careful consideration being given to this subject. I shall certainly be glad to convey what the noble Baroness has said, but I think it is important that the Pay Board should be allowed to consider the matter carefully and get the right solution. Subject to that, I for my part would certainly like to see the report appear as soon as possible.
§ LORD ALPORTMy Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he would agree that it is not possible to consider this pay problem with the miners, and perhaps to the same extent with the electricity workers, in the context simply of an inflationary problem and of industrial relations, but that it is part of a very much bigger and longer term problem of the supply of energy for British industry and the maintenance of civilised life in this country? Therefore, a new perspective can be applied to these particular problems, and should be if, in fact, we are going to get what we will require for industry as a whole—the supplies of energy which are necessary to keep our standard of living going in this country in the immediate future.
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, I think that what my noble friend has said constitutes really a continuing problem. What we have to do first is to get Stage 3 working properly, and the terms of it applied fairly by all.
§ LORD ALPORTMy Lords, may I follow that observation very shortly with this question? If in fact, as a result of the situation in the Middle East, energy resources are not available to British industry in 1974, will not the whole economic situation here have changed so much that the present basis of wage rewards and employment, and the rest of it, no longer be relevant to the situation that will then exist?
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, it is very difficult to cast one's mind forward as far as that, but the plain fact is that unless we apply Stage 3 now we may have a runaway situation, which no one would like to see.
§ LORD HANKEYMy Lords, is it a fact that the wages agreement with the miners is valid and in force until next April, or the end of March? Is it not in flagrant breach of that agreement that while negotiations are going on for a new agreement they should take action to disrupt the industry, to the great disadvantage of this country? What do the Government propose to do about that?
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, the negotiations were taking place in the context of a renewal of the agreement, or a new agreement to take place next March, 239 a year after the previous agreement, and the negotiations to that end could still continue.
§ LORD HANKEYMy Lords, is the action taken, which is admittedly short of a strike but disruptive of the industry and of the fuel supplies of this country, not in fact contrary to the existing agreement?
§ LORD DRUMALBYNMy Lords, not so far as I know. I do not think that it is contrary to the existing agreement. Certainly the miners would regard it as part of the process of reaching a new agreement. What we are asking is that they should consider the consequences of their actions and the way in which they are prosecuting their case.
§ LORD ROBBINSMy Lords, could the noble Lord give the House any indication of the rate at which coal stocks will be run down so long as the present deadlock persists?
§ LORD DRUMALBYNNo, my Lords, I would rather not give that information to the House at the present time.