§ 3.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOWRIEMy Lords, with the leave of the House I should like to repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment. My right honourable friend's words were as follows:
"The Report of the Pay Board has been published to-day as a Command Paper. Copies are now available in the Vote Office.
"This Report fulfils the second part of the terms of reference given to the Board last March. Their first Report—on anomalies arising from the standstill—was published last September. The present Report concerns procedures for considering questions of wider pay relativities thrown up by the normal processes of pay determination.
"In the course of their study the Board have received a great amount and variety of evidence, some of it rather late in the day, and the Government are grateful to the Board for proceeding as quickly as possible with 1586 their analysis of the fundamental problems involved.
"The Board have come to the conclusion that there is a need for a procedure, within a counter-inflation policy, for resolving relativity problems in the interests of some groups, while ensuring that others do not thereafter secure the same benefit. The Board do not believe it possible to define self-implementing criteria for the resolution of such problems, such as could be embodied in the Price and Pay Code subject to the approval of Parliament. They therefore outline the following possible procedure.
"First, a means of undertaking a preliminary sifting of cases for further examination. This would be undertaken by the Government with advice from the C.B.I. and the T.U.C. in accordance with guiding principles and procedures to be worked out in consultation with them.
"Secondly, cases so selected would be examined in depth and in public by or on behalf of a standing examining authority, possibly the Pay Board itself.
"Thirdly, the examining body would make a recommendation to the Government, with whom would lie the final decision, for which the Government would of course be answerable directly to this House.
"The Government welcome the report as a valuable basis for consultation with industry.
"The next step is to consult the T.U.C. and C.B.I. on the recommendations, and I have to-day sent copies of the Report to them for their views on the Board's proposals. The Government would like to hold discussions with the T.U.C. and C.B.I. as soon as they are ready."
§ LORD DIAMONDMy Lords, I am sure your Lordships would wish me to express our gratitude to the noble Earl for having repeated that statement. As your Lordships will appreciate, the document itself has only just been released and it would be premature to offer any serious comment on it without full consideration. But may I say to the noble Earl, with regard to the astonishing Statement he has made, that there would have 1587 been no difference in that Statement had there been no crisis; had there not been massive unemployment; had there not been short-term working; had there not been the problem of worsening relationships with the miners. None of these things seems to have made the slightest impression on the Government, so far as is revealed by that Statement. May I therefore ask the noble Earl: do not the Government now recognise that there may be full justification for treating the miners as a special case? And in view of the hourly worsening situation, should the Government not announce immediately their willingness to discuss this aspect of the matter, the special case, with the miners at the earliest possible moment?
§ LORD ROCHESTERMy Lords, I, too, should like briefly from these Benches to welcome this Statement. It will clearly need careful study, as the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, has already said, and we would then wish to make our comments upon it. Even now it is possible, I think, to express the hope that as a result of the publication of this Report it will be possible to regulate some of our industrial affairs in a more orderly way than at present.
As regards its possible application to the coalminers, I am afraid that we on these Benches cannot altogether go along with the noble Lord, Lord Diamond. For, as my noble friend Lord Byers maintained in this House last Tuesday, on the basic issue of whether or not the current dispute should be settled within the terms of Stage 3 of the incomes policy approved by Parliament, we on these Benches continue to give our support to the Government. At the next stage we would certainly hope that the procedures set out in this Report will contribute towards a more peaceful future for the coal industry. But ultimately, as my noble friend Lady Seear has said on more than one occasion from these Benches, we hope that the time will come when the Government will feel the need to do no more than set aside some global sum for wage and salary increases and again leave it to the trade unions and employers to resume their normal business of negotiation and themselves determine how this global sum should be distributed among the various industries.
§ VISCOUNT AMORYMy Lords, surely the noble Lord, Lord Diamond—
§ LORD SHACKLETONMy Lords, perhaps the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, would follow the usual practice.
THE EARL OF GOWRIEMy Lords, yes, I am glad to do so. I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, for thanking me for repeating the Statement in the usual way. I have of course to thank the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, in a slightly more heartfelt manner than I am able to thank Lord Diamond. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, that clearly there are no instant solutions to one of the most intracable and challenging problems, the problem of relativity, which will be facing our society for a long time to come, regardless of what Government are in power. As to this question of treating the miners as a special case, the Government have never ceased to do so; they have always regarded the miners as a special case. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister has already made clear the difficulties of going beyond Stage 3 in present circumstances, and these, I think, should be obvious to all. That said, I am grateful for the way in which the noble Lords have received the Report, and I hope that your Lordships will study it very carefully.
§ VISCOUNT AMORYMy Lords, I should like to apologise to the Leader of the Opposition and other noble Lords for having rather beaten the gun just now. I only wanted to say that it seemed to me that the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, had rather jumped to conclusions in saying what he did, having admitted that he had not had time to study this Report. It seems to me that this Report should be welcomed as an initial move in a field of the very greatest importance. Relativities are the crux of most industrial disputes to-day. It is a field to which I would forecast that Parliament will have to give a great deal of attention over the years ahead.
§ LORD DIAMONDMy Lords, may I pursue the Government on the question of treating the miners as a special case? The noble Earl said that the Government had always looked upon the miners as a special case. May I explain to the noble Viscount that of course we all 1589 agree that, so far as this is a Report on relativities, that matter needs careful consideration; and I tried to make that clear. What I am complaining about has nothing to do with the Report but concerns the Government's attitude as expressed in the Statement. We are in a very critical situation indeed. This Report was expected earlier; it might well have come out in December, and had it done so it would have been taken into account by the Government in their considerations and their negotiations with the National Union of Mineworkers. Now that it is available, I am asking the noble Earl whether it would not be right for the Government to make it known that they welcome that part of the Report which opens up the possibility of dealing with the miners as a special case. Having regard to the view which the T.U.C., with full authority, have already expressed on that, and to the dangers of allowing the matter to drift further and to worsen, would it not be right for the Government to announce straight away that they are most anxious to resume the negotiations with the miners on the basis of the "special case" treatment provided for in his Report?
THE EARL OF GOWRIEMy Lords, I must repeat my hope that the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, will study the Report most carefully. I think that he may be confusing it slightly with the Report from the Pay Board on anomalies, which did of course deal with special cases. This Report does not deal with special cases but rather with general principles of a kind which are going to be increasingly important to us all in this society, as my noble friend Lord Amory recognised.
§ LORD BESWICKMy Lords, if this Report does not deal with special cases, what are paragraphs 60 and 61 about? Do they not give the procedure for dealing with special cases? May I ask the noble Earl what is the time factor involved? How long would it take for an examination in depth and in public of each case and for the consequent recommendation for decision by the Secretary of State? How long would it take, for example, in the case of the mining dispute? Finally, may I ask: is it possible that, within this time factor of two or three weeks, Sir Frank Figgures will take his place, with the Treasury Solicitor, 1590 as one of the Government's principal "getters-off" of grisly hooks?
THE EARL OF GOWRIEMy Lords, I do not think that Sir Frank Figgures would recognise himself in that role at all. As to the first point made by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, he seemed to think that paragraphs 60 and 61 deal with special cases. I must stand on my former answer; that they do not; they deal with the all-important question of procedures for dealing with special cases.
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has the advantage over most of us of having seen the Report. I think we should all have been content to wait and study the Report had it not been for the exigencies of the situation concerning the miners. May I ask the noble Earl, whether there are any criteria in the Report which would help in dealing with a situation like the miners? And if there are such criteria within the Report, are they going to be used in the immediate future, maybe before the Report is studied and debated in this House?
THE EARL OF GOWRIEMy Lords, before answering that question, may I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, because I did not deal with his second question about how long an examination would take. My right honourable friend has made it clear that he has sent a copy of the Report immediately to the T.U.C. and the C.B.I., and he is anxious that they should have discussions on this as quickly as possible. As to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Douglass of Cleveland, it seems to us to be important to get the right kind of procedures—and I recognise the urgency here—for dealing with problems about which there is very widespread disagreement. I repeat that we recognise the urgency, and this is what we want to get the T.U.C. and the C.B.I. talking about quickly.
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, if the noble Earl will forgive me, it was not procedures that I was talking about but criteria as to what methods would be used in dealing with this matter and what sort of arguments would be accepted by the Government which have not been accepted up to now? If they are not going to be accepted so far as the miners' case is concerned, 1591 with all the problems that we have at the moment, there is little likelihood that the Report will be of any great value in the future to any of the unions.
THE EARL OF GOWRIEMy Lords, it may reassure the noble Lord a little that the Pay Board have made it clear that they would like cases selected for study to be examined in depth and in public, so that there would be no question of closed doors here.
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, that does not answer the question. Can the noble Earl tell me, yes or no, are there any criteria in this particular Report which would give some heart to this side of the House in supposing that the Report will help in settling either the miners' dispute or any similar disputes in the future?
THE EARL OF GOWRIEMy Lords, I think I answered the question. It would surely be impossible that a Report dealing with the general principles for investigating a large and intractable social problem would be used for a particular case. The Report specifically rules out—as the noble Earl will see if he will look at paragraph 44—dealing with special cases, particularly at a time of crisis.
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, if that is so, is it not a fact that it is the first Report of this kind—and there have been a number over the past five or six years—which has no criteria of the character I am asking about?
§ LORD BROOKE OF CUMNORMy Lords, would it not be best if we were all put on equal terms and given a chance to read this Report, and then debated it afterwards?
§ LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELANDMy Lords, may I say, in answer to that, that I am quite willing to wait to read the Report, but I am so concerned about the existing situation that I am seeking some clue as to whether there is anything in it that may help us.
§ LORD DIAMONDMy Lords, I take very seriously what the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, says, and of course we want to read the Report, and no doubt debate it in due course, after we have fully acquainted ourselves with the detailed 1592 proposals in it. But we are dealing to-day with a very difficult situation in relation to which reliance on this Report may be of extreme help to the country as a whole, to our industry, to our employment and to our balance of payments. I think, therefore, we must pursue the Government as to why they are not turning their minds, not to clutching at a straw, but to making use of a very valuable recommendation, in order possibly to help get the country out of its difficulties.
Is it not the case that paragraph 61 refers precisely to the question of self-implementing criteria and recommends certain procedures? Does not paragraph 61 refer to a recommendation by the examining body to the Secretary of State on the special treatment required, if any, and then for the Secretary of State to take the decision which he could already take, under the existing anti-inflation Act, without waiting for new legislation to vary the Code? Is it not the case, therefore, that the Government could now, if they wanted, make known to the miners that they are impressed by the views of this Report and would wish to negotiate with them further, taking into account the possibility of their being given special treatment as recommended in this Report?
THE EARL OF GOWRIEMy Lords, I must rest on this statement: that the Government have welcomed the Report; that the Report deals with procedures and principles rather than with special cases; that the Government are anxious for discussions to start as to ways in which procedures and criteria should be considered and implemented, and are anxious that this should be done very quickly.