Lords Sitting of 22 July 1974

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: THE LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Leicester.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne—Took the Oath.

GIBRALTAR: HOUSING
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will initiate discussions with the Gibraltar Government, concerning manpower, materials (standard amenities), a financial contribution ("along the lines of the provisions of Section 16(1) of the Housing Act 1969), with a view to easing the situation regarding sub-standard Gibraltarian households, as outlined in the Census held in September, 1970.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE(LORD GORONWY-OBERTS): My Lords, following the Aid Talks, to which the noble Lord referred in his last Question on this matter on April 4, 1973, Her Majesty's Government made available the services of the Commonwealth Housing Corporation to advise the Gibraltar Government on Housing. We hope to have talks with the Gibraltar Government later this year on their next development programme. This will provide an opportunity for them to raise the subject of improvement grants, if they wish.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for what is, to some extent, an assurance. But does he feel that Her Majesty's Government could take the initiative to a greater degree? Will he agree that in the list of defined domestic matters—in particular, under the heading of housing—there is no reference to financial assis-
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tance towards the cost of improvements and conversions, which are covered in Part I of the Housing Act? Would not the Minister agree that possibly, as there are certain defined domestic matters which overlap, Her Majesty's Government could take some degree of initiative with a view to assisting the Gibraltar Government to ease the problem, as approximately one-third of the houses in Gibraltar are of sub-standard condition?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, constitutionally the Gibraltar Government have full self-government in internal matters, of which housing is one. I do not think it would be appropriate for us to take an initiative in regard to internal policy, but we hold ourselves ready at all times to discuss with them any way in which we might be of even greater assistance—for instance, in housing—than we already are.

GIBRALTARIANS: HOSPITAL CARE IN UNITED KINGDOM
2.40 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many citizens of Gibraltar benefited this year (up to the end of June) from the provisions of paragraph (4) of the Agreement Cmnd. 5604 headed Hospital Care in the United Kingdom for Gibraltarians.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, 26 Gibraltarian sponsored patients had been sent to the United Kingdom under the terms of paragraph (4) of the Agreement up to the end of June, 1974.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, first of all, would not the Minister agree that there are a number of Gibraltarians who might well find it difficult to afford the £80-odd return air fare to this country? Can the noble Lord say what provisions exist to enable the poorer members of the community in Gibraltar to travel here for hospital care, bearing in mind that the Agreement to which the noble Lord referred does not extend to the payment of any travelling expenses between the

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two countries? The second question is this. As the provision in the Agreement is for a maximum of only 40 Gibraltarian citizens visiting this country for hospital treatment in a year, may not the figure of 40 be too small in view of the number sent during the six-month period that has already elapsed?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, on the second point, the Agreement, the exchange of dispatches, specifically provides for a review of that figure which is quoted in paragraph (4) (a) and (b). On the first point, the Agreement specifically excludes travel expenses between the two countries; but these are met by the Gibraltar Government, who also grant a maintenance allowance in the case of out-patients in need. I understand that the Gibraltar Government also meets the cost of passages and, if necessary, a maintenance allowance for one relative apart from patients.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, do I understand the Minister aright that in fact in cases of need the Gibraltar Government does pay for the air fare of Gibraltarians?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, that is so.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, with the leave of the House my noble friend Lord Goronwy-Roberts will be making a Statement on Cyprus at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., and this will be followed by a Statement by my noble friend Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge on Northern Ireland.
I would remind the House that we shall be sitting next Friday from 11 a.m. I should also like to inform your Lordships that dinners will be available tonight and to-morrow.

BRITISH TRANSPORT DOCKS BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments and passed, and returned to the Commons.

TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS BILL
2.44 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Shepherd.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[THE EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair].
LORD HANKEY LORD HANKEY moved Amendment No. 1:
Before Clause 1, page 1, line 4, at end insert:

PART I INTRODUCTORY
General Principles
(1) The provisions of this Act shall have effect for the purpose of promoting good industrial relations in accordance with the following general principles, that is to say:

(a) the principle of collective bargaining freely conducted on behalf of workers and employers and with due regard to the general interests of the community;

(b) the principle of developing and maintaining orderly procedures in industry for the peaceful and expeditious settlement of disputes by negotiation, conciliation or arbitration, with due regard to the general interests of the community;

(c) the principle of free association of workers in independent trade unions, and of employers in employers' associations, so organised as to be representative, responsible and effective bodies for regulating relations between employers and workers; and

(d) the principle of freedom and security for workers, protected by adequate safeguards against unfair industrial practices, whether on the part of employers or others.

(2) With a view to fulfilling that purpose those principles shall be regarded as guiding principles—

(a) by the Secretary of State, and by all other persons upon whom duties are placed by and under this Act, in the performance by them respectively of their functions under this Act, and

(b) by industrial tribunals, in the exercise of the jurisdiction conferred by or under this Act on those tribunals.")

The noble Lord said: I think that it is very desirable that the Trade Union

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Bill or, for that matter, any legislation which governs our trade union relations in the way that this Bill does, should state somewhere what trade unions are really expected to do. This Bill states their rights and also what they must not do, but nowhere does it give a forward looking and constructive appearance to their functions, and I believe that this is overwhelmingly important.
I do not think that this is simply a psychological question. If one takes an embassy, for instance, behind the Iron Curtain—where embassies are treated like licensed spies and are not able to entertain very much the people in the country, and the ambassador can see the head of the State he is accredited to only with the greatest difficulty—they are really not able to exercise any useful function. Because they are regarded as licensed spies, many members of the embassy tend to behave like licensed spies. The same happens on this side, and what else could happen? It is the same with any organisation, including a trade union. If we regard trade unions as a licensed conspiracy—which is the traditional basis of British law about trade unions—the employers tend to think, "These people are dangerous. Let us have as little to do with them as we can."
The real position which a trade union ought to occupy is quite clearly seen in other countries, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, where they have a big and constructive role to play. Trade unions ought to act not only in the interests of their members—and I stress this—but one of their functions is to give the workers in any industry the absolute confidence that their interests are well protected. If they know that their interests are well protected they are much more likely to work happily and there can be better industrial relations. It is also important that the trade unions should have respect for the public interest, because otherwise what one trade union does damages the interests of workers in other industries and, for that matter, other industries themselves. Therefore, one wants responsible action on the part of the trade unions, and, I maintain, speaking strictly from the middle of the road, that this idea ought to be enshrined, stated and explicitly set forth somewhere in our legislation.
This Amendment which, with great humility, I ventured to set down is, in fact, a redraft of the initial article of the Industrial Relations Act 1971. I think your Lordships will have noticed it crossed out at the beginning of Schedule 1 for a reason which, in the absence of Hansard, I cannot explain. I have taken that text out because I think that it is an excellent statement of what trade unions ought to do. I believe that, provided we have that idea adequately set forth in our legislation, it would facilitate fruitful contacts between the workers in any industry and the heads of that industry, and the people with whom they have to conduct their daily relations. So I should like—again speaking strictly from the middle of the road—to commend this clause to both sides of the House. I should have thought that it might prove to be uncontroversial. Indeed, I cannot imagine anybody objecting to it unless they were, or (shall I say?) might be people of some evil intent. I think that this clause is so transparent that I recommend it to your Lordships' approval.
LORD SLATER: I am interested in the observations of the noble Lord, Lord Hankey. He talked of being "middle of the road" about the constitution of trade unions, how they operate and what can really happen between one trade union and another. I hope he has not overlooked the fact that rules and regulations governing trade unions in this country are drafted by their membership, with the consent and approval of the Registrar-General who must give his stamp of approval.
I come from the mining industry, and as far back as 1937 we had to draft and redraft the rules and regulations of the Durham Miners' Association, as it was before it became a member of the N.U.M. We spent weeks and weeks, with legal advice at our disposal, deciding the rules and regulations governing our trade union for the benefit of the membership. The terms and objects of those rules are to govern and to seek to look after the interests of the membership to the best of their ability, so far as the head office and its Executive are concerned. The rules are applied not only to one section but to all sections within that type of industry and that trade union.

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I sincerely hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, will give further thought and study to these facts. I can appreciate his observations as a diplomat and with his experience of embassies. Many of us have met ambassadors from abroad. In conversation we have found that some of them even had to depend on the layman's information and attitude of mind to put them on the right track. Therefore, the drafting and the workings of a trade union are not so much a cause of difference between one trade union and another. What we must remember is that there is not just one trade union for the mining industry; we also have the engineering industry and the warehouseman's side. There are all these different trades and grades of operation and employment within this country, who are governed by their parent body for trade unions in seeking to look after the interests of their members.
LORD SHEPHERD: Like my noble friend, I was slightly taken aback the first time the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, referred to himself as being "middle of the road". I was even more taken aback when he repeated it. My memory is sufficiently long to remember his speech on Second Reading. It was so far to the Right that I even suspected that the Cross-Benchers might have found difficulty in finding a place for him. How ever, he has moved the Amendment with moderation. There is no doubt that in the distant past it was the practice to include in legislation what one might call the long title of a Bill, in the sense that it set out the general purposes and principles that governed the legislation. That is no longer the practice, whether right or wrong. The noble Lord admitted that the Amendment which he has tabled has been copied from the 1971 Act. At the beginning of this Committee stage I do not wish in any way to raise the temperature of the Chamber—
LORD HANKEY: On a point of correction, the Amendment is considerably and very well redrafted. I was only trying to explain that it was not redrafted by myself.
LORD SHEPHERD: The principle is there. A few words here and there may have been changed, but the substance
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of the noble Lord's Amendment is that of Section 1(1) of the 1971 Act. In the Second Reading debate, I sought to explain to the House that, as a freely admitted consequence, the Industrial Relations Act had created great harm and great discord in the entire field of industrial relations. What we sought was a new concordance, a new sense of cooperation between Government and the trade union movement, and also within the C.B.I. itself. This is the first of a series of pieces of legislation. It is of a limited character but is none the less important. I cannot imagine anything that would be more contrary to the desire of the Committee than to include the first subsection of the 1971 Act in a new piece of legislation dealing with the trade union movement, whatever the merits of the words in the Amendment. We are seeking a new era. Therefore it is right and proper that we should keep as far away as possible from the general construction of the 1971 Act.
My understanding is that in the other place the official Opposition tabled an Amendment in similar terms. Whether it is right to say that a deal was done I do not know, but that Amendment was not proceeded with by the official Opposition, because an understanding was reached with the Government that the code of practice should remain within the piece of legislation. The code of practice is a useful and practical piece of doctrine on which trade unions and employers can operate. This set of principles, whether worthy or not, will create great disturbance in the minds of those who will be called upon to operate this new piece of legislation. The noble Lord will find that a number of the so-called principles do not appear in any form of provision in the Bill itself. Therefore, even if one were to regard it as the long Title, it would seem strange to set it out at the beginning of the Bill as its purpose and intention, when there are no clauses within it to fulfil what are the intentions of the principles set out.
In conclusion, I think that when the noble Lord, Lord Hankey looks at subsection (1) he will agree that he then needs to follow carefully subsection (2). If he does that he will find that the principles which are set out in subsection (1) of the 1971 Act do not in any way refer or require implementation by trade

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unions. If the noble Lord has not read it perhaps I should refer to it. Subsection (2) says:
"With a view to fulfilling that purpose those principles shall be regarded as guiding principles (a) by the Secretary of State, the Commission on Industrial Relations, and the Chief Registrar of Trade Unions and Employers' Associations, and assistant registrars, to be appointed under this Act, in the performance by them respectively of their functions under this Act, and (b) by the National Industrial Relations Court to be established under this Act, and by industrial tribunals, in the exercise of the jurisdiction conferred by or under this Act on that Court and on those tribunals".
My understanding is that, apart from the Secretary of State all those referred to in subsection (2) disappear with the repeal of the Industrial Relations Act.
LORD HANKEY: I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord again. If he will look at the Amendment he will see it does refer to none other than the Secretary of State and the industrial tribunals which do continue.
LORD SHEPHERD: But in setting out the principles one needs some form of provisions and some kind of organisation to whom they are directed. Having dealt with the point I hope the noble Lord will feel that I have covered it adequately. While I am not against the principles as such it would be inadvisable at this stage for these to be included in new legislation which is to be regarded as a new effort to bring about a new concordant, a new understanding and degree of co-operation between the Government, trade unions and every side of industry.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: When one hears mention of the term "the 1971 Industrial Relations Act", the likelihood is that someone from these Benches will bob up. I think we are in a slight difficulty already, despite the fact that the warm words uttered by the noble Lord the Leader of the House about the Code of Practice were music to my ears as one who has read the account of the fight over retaining the Code of Practice in Standing Committee in another place. I am very glad that he has been converted so quickly; and I think that may make for good augury on all sides for the rest of the Committee stage. Of course. I think it would be as well—I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Hankey—to get out
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of the way at the very beginning of this Committee stage, as he has tried to do, the casting of the Industrial Relations Act in the role of primary villain in industrial relations. I do not think this will be very helpful.
I know that for political reasons, for reasons of trying to introduce it on May 1, and the like, the opening words of the present Bill state the desire of the Government to repeal the Act, and yet, that notwithstanding, it keeps some 27 provisions, I think, the unfair dismissal ones being the most notable in point. I hope that we can, and I appeal to your Lordships that we should, spend this Committee stage without attacking the Act, because I think that it attempted to solve on a comprehensive basis (perhaps too comprehensively, perhaps too quickly) many important issues in industrial relations which are still with us and with which this Bill, this Government, the next Government, whoever, will still have to deal. We know that the Act provided a means for dealing with recognition disputes and disputes as to bargaining rights with the help of the C.I.R., and it provided a means of ensuring that unions behaved fairly towards their own members. It provided machinery for determining the relative shops—closed shops or agency shops—and how they should be allowed. All of these, I think, were fairly constructive points; but for our part, we have, as your Lordships' Committee will know, formally abandoned any commitment to reintroduce the Industrial Relations Act. We accept that it may have made the situation difficult, though my own view—and it is only my own view—is that any attempt at industrial relations legislation in an atmosphere of raging inflation, with what that does to the relative positions of workpeople in our society, is bound to fail on that score alone.
However, this said, I am enormously grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, and am very glad that he has brought up these principles. It is, I believe, sometimes a matter of controversy between lawyers and laymen as to whether principles—cheer-leading provisions, if one may so describe them—should be in Bills; but when Bills are dealing with such a wide area of national life as in industrial relations, regardless of whether they are dealing with them in the way we tried to

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or the way in which the present Government are trying to, then I think it is right in many ways—it is tempting, certainly—to try to insert some cheer-leading provisions, some statements of intent.
I do not see how anyone who reads the Amendment put down on the Marshalled List by the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, could fail to agree with those principles or refuse to comply with them. I do not think, of course, that the Government would want to disagree with them. Surely we all want better industrial relations. As I said on Second Reading—and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor was kind enough to quote me on this—it is the domestic issue of our time, our central issue. We want to encourage everybody who is concerned in this sphere to follow good principles of industrial relations, and, following the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, I should like to outline some of the ways and some of the principles by which differences in this sphere could be resolved. I will then turn to the question of, "Why not put them in this Bill?", because, despite in principle being so much on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, I agree with the noble Lord the Leader of the House that they perhaps should not be in the Bill at this time.
It seems to me that it is important in a Bill such as this to deal with rights, and later on there will be many Amendments on which one will be talking about rights. When you try to establish what your rights are, you immediately have to ask yourself the ways in which you can enforce them. It is when you can enforce them, when you can appeal to law about them, that, of course, the law is involved. If people reach the stage where they cannot agree and they have to ask, "Where are my rights? What are they? How can I enforce them?", and there are disagreements about that, then that brings in the law, because the answer can be given only in law. That, I think, is why we were and are so keen to have a coherent framework of law for industrial relations, and why we wish to see the Bill put into a framework which is to us more coherent than as it now stands, if that is possible. In short, we want to agree about the general principles, and that is why we tried to persuade the Government to accept the Code which the
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noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, mentioned quite warmly at the beginning of his speech.
It is because the Government saw reason about this matter, because they agreed with the majority in Standing Committee that the Code should be retained, that we feel that there are not merely cheer-leading provisions and principles but also a point of reference for good principles in the Bill. I think that the fact that the Code is there enshrined by Statute or will be there if the Bill goes through, is important, because it means that when we in Parliament debate industrial relations we can appeal to the Code just as if, we, too, were engaged, perhaps, in disputes about it. If the Bill goes through, its legal status will remain relevant in evidence and the industrial tribunals will continue to have regard to it. I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, to recognise that a very considerable victory has been won here—or, if that is somewhat too militaristic a term, that very considerable sense has been shown by the Government here—and I hope that he will not press his Amendment.
LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELAND: I thank the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, for the good speech that he has made in respect of this matter at the beginning of our discussions. I hope his tone will be carried through the debates on this Bill, because it is a short Bill. It is not intended to deal with all the aspects of human relations which exist inside industry. I am moved to ask the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, when he talks about general principles, why he wants to offend all the moderate trade unionists in this country. Governments have done that time and time again, which has led us into an industrial impasse and made things almost impossible in the country. Now Lord Hankey does precisely the same thing by setting down the general principles as though they were something which had not previously been observed by moderate trade unionists in this country.
I will put just one brief question to the noble Lord. In these general principles he does not refer at all to the right to strike. This is a significant omission. The fact is that the wording of this Amendment will be interpreted not by what is in it but by what is left out of it. If

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Lord Hankey had included in these principles the right to strike, which everybody in this Chamber has reiterated time and time again, and had given some indication as to any limit he might like to put upon the right to strike, then the Amendment would have been more understandable. As it is, when all these general principles are set down and the one on the right to strike is left out, then the whole Committee is entitled to be suspicious of the motives of putting down an Amendment of this character.
LORD HANKEY: I note the feeling of the Committee. I am surprised at the opinion of the noble Lord the Leader of the House about the undesirability of referring to the Industrial Relations Act at the beginning of the new Bill; for that is certainly what the present text does. I think it is quite pathetic to start repealing the 1971 Act and then to go on to list whole chunks of it which are to be retained. As a matter of fact, it is obvious which chunks are to be retained; but it seems to me that the Bill is doing precisely what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, said that he did not like us to do.
Regarding the observations of the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, I should like to say how much I share his opinion about the Code of Practice. It is extremely important that that should be retained. I was not aware that there had been an understanding in order to get it retained—and, if so, I should think that as important as anything we have done—and in that case I should not want to press my Amendment. However, I should like to observe that the Code of Practice can be amended at any time by the Secretary of State with the approval of Parliament, so that it is not quite so stable a statement of principle as is contained at the beginning of an Act.
The noble Lord, Lord Douglass, made an important and interesting point with which in many ways I agree. If one reads this Bill as a whole there is so much in it about strikes and immunities and that sort of thing that it is a little unbalanced. I should have liked to put in something like this Amendment in order to set the record straight; although, of course, one cannot put everything into one compendious Bill, for it would then be so long as to become a waste of time. I think it would have been valuable to have a statement of principle and I do not believe
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that anybody would want to disagree with any of the principles. But if there has been an understanding arrived at then, with the approval of the Committee, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 [Repeal of Industrial Relations Act 1971 and re-enactment of certain provisions]:
3.13 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 17, leave out ("118").
The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend Lord Belstead, I beg to move Amendment No. 2. I should like at the outset to explain that this is a preparatory Amendment to two probing Amendments, Nos. 39 and 40, which relate respectively to paragraphs 19 and 20 of Schedule 1. On reflection, my noble friend and I feel that perhaps the right place at which to debate this matter would be on the Motion that Schedule 1 stand part of the Bill; but, on the other hand, I think it might be helpful at this stage—because it is necessary in any case to put down the Amendment—to take the opportunity to set out the thoughts that we have in our minds, so that the noble Lord the Leader of the House and the Government may reflect on the points I am about to make and can be ready to deal with them when we discuss Schedule 1.
The thinking behind the Redundancy Payments Act has always been that the blow of redundancy must be cushioned by the award of the equivalent of two years' pay. The 1971 Industrial Relations Act adopted this solution (which is to remain on the Statute Book) for unfair dismissal and laid down a maximum compensation of £4,160, computed at £40 a week salary for a period of two years. This Bill carries on the principle of the 1971 Act, but increases the maximum amount of compensation for unfair dismissal to £5,200; that is to say, a salary of £50 a week for two years. This is done in Schedule 1, Part II, paragraph 20. The points we want to make are, first, that the comparison between redundancy pay and compensation for unfair dismissal is a false one; and, secondly, that in a number of cases—and I am thinking particularly of the situation of a head

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teacher—the maximum compensation will be inadequate.
Perhaps I could deal with the first point, that of false comparison. Unlike redundancy, dismissal—albeit it unfair—involves the loss of status. In some occupations or professions this may not be disastrous, but in the teaching profession—and, as I have said, it is the head teacher that I have particularly in mind—the stigma attaching to dismissal can be disastrous. The fact that it is unfair dismissal is really beside the point. A head teacher may have devoted his or her entire life to the profession culminating with a headship, and it must be realised that where unfair dismissal causes the loss of a head teacher's position it can be extraordinarily difficult to regain an equivalent position. The head teacher's professional training and experience will scarcely fit him for an equivalent position outside teaching. So much by way of illustration of how the comparison between redundancy and compensation for unfair dismissal breaks down.
I now come to the second point, in which I seek to show to the Committee that the compensation—at any rate, for people like head teachers—may often prove inadequate. For the reasons given, the position of a head teacher is particularly vulnerable under the provisions of Schedule 1, paragraph 20, where the maximum compensation figure is £5,200. Certainly, this is a figure which takes some account of inflation; for since 1971 there has been the increase that I mentioned from £4,160 to £5,200. But inflation, even if we succeed in reducing the rate at which it is growing, will, I fear, remain with us. I do not believe that this figure compensates for the injustice of unfair dismissal of a person like a head teacher.
To illustrate that point, it is probable that 70 per cent. of the schools in this country are classified as Group 4 on the Burnham scale; and a two-year salary for a head of a Group 4 school would range from £6,048 to £6,848. Let us compare that with the maximum of £5,200. Furthermore, the head of a moderately large secondary school would receive from £9,570 to £10,362 over two years. I hope that that demonstrates clearly enough that the maximum compensation
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that can be paid under this Bill is already quite inadequate. There is quite a bit more that could be said on this issue. I thought that it might be helpful to the Committee merely to make those points now, on the understanding that if 1 withdraw this Amendment my noble friend and I have it in mind to return to the subject when we start debating Schedule 1.
LORD SHEPHERD: I would respond to the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, and make a little longer intervention at this stage than perhaps is needed. I do so in order that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, may avoid the necessity of raising the matter later in the Committee stage. I think we should be clear we are not now dealing with those who may be wrongfully dismissed, because they have their rights at court; nor are we dealing with those who may be unfairly dismissed but who are subject to a fixed contract. We are dealing with those who may be unfairly dismissed and who are on a short term form of employment.
The present provisions of paragraph 20 of Schedule 1 limit the tribunals' awards of compensation for unfair dismissal to an amount not exceeding 104 weeks' pay in the claimant's last job, or £5,200, whichever is the less. The Secretary of State has, however, power to raise the latter limit by Order, subject to the approval of both Houses of Parliament. These Amendments would remove paragraph 20 in its entirety and delete all reference to it. The only remaining restriction on tribunals' freedom to dispense unlimited sums in compensation would be the provisions of paragraph 19 which require them to award such amounts as they consider just and equitable in all the circumstances, on the basis of the loss sustained by the complainant as a result of dismissal.
It is important to be clear at the outset that industrial tribunals are designed to deal quickly and informally with the claims presented to them. They are not equipped to deal with the complex legal issues which may arise over the dismissal of highly paid executives where very large sums of money are involved. The Donovan Commission expected tribunals to have the most importance for the lower paid worker, perhaps in less strongly unionised sectors of the economy. There is little evidence that the present

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limit has forced tribunals to reduce their awards of compensation.
It may be thought that the more highly paid employees are at an unfair disadvantage because they can be awarded only £4,160, whereas lower paid workers can get two years' pay. This might be a problem if compensation awards of two years' pay were commonplace, but this is not the case. The Department's statistics indicate that in the whole period from the beginning of the unfair dismissal jurisdiction on February 28, 1972, to the end of 1973, tribunals awarded more than £4,000 in only 10 cases out of 1,428 awards of compensation for unfair dismissal, and the Department is aware of only six cases in which it is clear that the tribunals would have awarded substantially more than that sum had they not been constrained by the upper limit. Nor do the Government accept the theory that the upper limit of £40 a week may have deterred employees earning more than that amount from bringing cases to the tribunals, and that may be the reason why so few complainants have been awarded the present maximum. The Department's statistics indicate that in 1973, for example, nearly a quarter of male applicants recorded their basic wage at over £40 a week, nor did it seem that tribunals found the limit of 104 weeks' pay unduly restrictive. Cases where complainants have received less than the sum necessary to compensate them for their losses because of the application of the 104-week limit have been known, but there is no reason to suppose that they occur frequently.
In the Government's view, the reason for the low amounts generally awarded is that the tribunals are required to assess the amount of compensation strictly according to the loss suffered by the complainant. The real question is, therefore, whether it is right that compensation should be assessed purely on the loss due to the dismissal. This is a question which the Government are already studying as part of a much more fundamental review of the unfair dismissal provisions for the Employment Protection Bill. In the context of that review, the present limits on compensation will be reconsidered but, while the basis remains unchanged, there does not seem to be any need to alter the present provisions.
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I hope that, with that explanation, and recognising that the Government are aware of the problem but feel the need to look at the matter in a more fundamental way than in present legislation, the noble Lord will feel that the point which he has in mind is understood and, it is hoped, will be met by the Government when the Employment Protection Bill is presented to Parliament.
BARONESS SEEAR: Is it possible to consider—though I know it is not in terms of the Amendment—leaving the two-year limit but omitting the financial upper limit? With the present rate of inflation the figure may not have been too low in the past, but it is very likely to be so in the future and, if there is the limit of two years' salary, it imposes a kind of limit within which the tribunal can operate without having an actual figure which may before very long seem very unrealistic.
LORD SHEPHERD: I will certainly take note of what the noble Baroness has said. But I hope that she will remember that I said earlier that there is power in the Bill for the Secretary of State by Order to lift the limit for the industrial tribunals. This would deal with the valid point which the noble 3aroness has made about the consequences of inflation.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that first response to my first statement on this issue. My noble friend and I will study carefully what the noble Lord has said before we come to the next opportunity for debating this matter during this or the next stage of the Bill. However, I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. While it is perfectly true, as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has said, that there is power in the Bill as drafted for the Secretary of State by Order to raise the upper limit, I submit that that is not the same thing and is not as good a way of dealing with it as giving power or discretion to the tribunals—which is the effect of my Amendment and is the effect which the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, would like to see—to go above the fixed limit. I should have thought that that would be a better way of doing it, and that is what the Amendments seek to do. However, as I indicated at the beginning, I think that the right thing to do is to

1427
leave this for the time being because the substantive discussion fits more aptly and appropriately into the discussion of Schedule 1 and, if the Committee agree, I should prefer to study what the noble Lord has said and to withdraw the present Amendment.
LORD SHEPHERD: Before the noble Lord withdraws the Amendment, would he consider whether he would think it right to give the tribunals greater discretion than that which Parliament is prepared to give to the county courts? At the present moment, the limit for county court awards is £750, though I believe that in a few months' time it is to be raised to £1,000. It is true that these industrial tribunals have a legally qualified chairman, but they have lay members and I wonder whether it would be right, as the noble Lord has suggested, to give such wide powers, with no limits and well above anything that Parliament has given to the county courts. This is a point I would ask the noble Lord to consider between now and the next stage.
BARONESS SEEAR: The figures which the noble Lord quotes show that the tribunals have already been given the power to award more than the county courts and, in any case, if there is the limit of two years, that puts an appropriate limit on the matter. The figure for the county courts is lower than that which has been allowed to the tribunals in the Bill.
LORD SANDFORD: I think that that is enough to illustrate that there is a good deal in this matter which still needs consideration. I am grateful to the noble Lord, and my noble friend and I will consider these matters. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Status of trade unions]:
3.30 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE THE EARL OF GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 2, line 40, after ("corporate") insert ("by virtue of section 74 of the 1971 Act").
The noble Earl said: On behalf of my noble and learned friend and myself I
1428
should like to move this Amendment. Under the terms of Section 74 of the 1971 Act a trade union which registered under the Act, if it was not already a body corporate, became one. I understand that the trade unions of this country wish to reverse that position, and while we do not agree with that we, of course, understand why it should be so. Clause 2(4) is designed to do just that. On the present wording it might possibly de-incorporate—and I apologise for that use of language, but I cannot think of a better term—and make incorporeal or corporated people who wanted to remain so, who felt that corporate status was advantageous to them and to others, and that it was a perfectly reasonable thing to retain. Our Amendment would restrict this de-incorporation to those who had originally been incorporated against their will. I beg to move.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD ELWYN-JONES): It is not known to the Government whether any such bodies as have been hypothetically indicated by the noble Earl do, in fact, exist, but if he is able to identify any we would certainly be glad to look at them. There are two possible cases which might conceivably be covered: first of all, trade unions which happen to be corporate bodies otherwise than by virtue of the 1971 Act but are not on the special register and so enabled to retain their corporate status. We do not know of any such bodies but if the noble Earl does we will certainly consider the matter. Secondly, there are corporate bodies which do not at present fall within the definition of trade unions and so are legitimately incorporated, but who would, because of the slightly wider definition of "trade union" in the Bill, fall within the definition and so have their corporate status rendered void. It seems unlikely, though perhaps not absolutely impossible, that there are any such bodies. All I wish to say is that if it becomes possible between now and Report stage to identify any bodies we will certainly be willing to look at the point.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: The noble and learned Lord has made a very handsome offer and, in the light of his giving us more time to look at this matter, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

CYPRUS
3.33 p.m.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, with the permission of the House I should like to repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. The Statement reads as follows:
"I will with your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, make a further Statement about Cyprus.
"Members of the House will have been following with great anxiety the very serious situation in the Eastern Mediterranean following the decision of the Turkish Government to land forces on Cyprus in the early hours of Saturday, July 20. Fighting has been continuous since then including fighting between the communities and the House will have heard with great relief that the Governments of Greece and Turkey have agreed that a cease-fire should become effective from three o'clock today (London time). In view of the assurances that have been given I trust that the fighting within Cyprus will now die down and that the suffering of the Cypriot people will be ended.
"During the weekend and in a period of intense diplomatic activity our main purpose was to achieve a ceasefire at the earliest possible moment, to prevent the fighting from spreading or escalating and measures to safeguard the lives of British dependents of our troops, British residents and British tourists. Dr. Kissinger and I held continuous discussions throughout Saturday and Sunday separately with the Prime Minister of Turkey and the Foreign Minister of Greece. I remained in touch with M. Sauvagnargues, the current President of the Nine, with the Secretary General of the United Nations and with the Secretary General of NATO who supported our efforts.
"It is now very important to look to the future. Under paragraph 2 of
1430
the Security Council Resolution number 353 which was passed on Saturday a call was made for a cease fire and for maximum restraint. If things go well that provision is now in the process of coming into effect. Under paragraph 5 of the same Resolution there was a call for talks between the three guarantor powers and we must get on with them urgently. I have this morning invited the Governments of Greece and Turkey to meet with me urgently. This morning the Foreign Minister of Greece informed me of his willingness to attend talks in Geneva, and shortly before I came to the House, the Prime Minister of Turkey spoke to me and indicated his agreement to Geneva as the meeting place. I trust that these talks will begin either tomorrow or on Wednesday.
"The safety of British citizens in Cyprus has been given the highest priority by Her Majesty's Government since the crisis began. My honourable Friend the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been put in direct and personal charge of their welfare. My honourable Friend the Under-Secretary for Air has been in the Sovereign Base Areas since Saturday. A large proportion of the British citizens together with a considerable number of other foreign nationals are now concentrated in the Sovereign Base Areas. Those British citizens still scattered about the island, and particularly those near Kyrenia, should now gain respite if the ceasefire holds. We are however continuing to make urgent arrangements for their protection and removal if they so wish. I am sure the House would like to pay high tribute to the excellent work of the British Forces in Cyprus, the British High Commission and the United Nations Forces and to the good co-operation between them. Among many outstanding operations yesterday's convoy from Dhekelia to Nicosia and back was a remarkable achievement. The good sense and the good spirits of the British dependents themselves, the British residents and the British tourists have helped greatly the efforts to ensure their safety. The House will have heard with sorrow the news of the death of the son of a British Serviceman in Cyprus and the accidental death of one

1431
of the British soldiers serving with the United Nations Forces. We send out our sympathy to their families and indeed to the families of all those in Cyprus, Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot alike, who have suffered death, injury or loss in the tragic events of the last three days.
"Mr. Speaker, a great deal has to be done to ensure the return to constitutional rule in Cyprus which was destroyed last Monday and to devise arrangements which will produce the necessary confidence among all concerned that this will be maintained in future. We are at the beginning of the process of consultation and negotiation to that end. 1 assure the House that the British Government will continue to work strenuously and urgently in every way to achieve it."
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
3.41 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, not for the first time in the last few days we are grateful to the noble Lord for repeating a Statement in this House. We are particularly grateful on this occasion for the news that he has told us about the ceasefire, which is very welcome. It certainly looks as if we may now be able to avert a conflict between Greece and Turkey which, of course, was the all-important thing in this situation. If I may, I should like to congratulate the Foreign Secretary and the Government for the part that they have played in bringing about this ceasefire.
As the Statement said, we must now look to the future and to the meeting which is to take place in Geneva between the Foreign Secretary and the other two guarantor Powers. I wonder whether I may ask the noble Lord opposite how it is intended to associate the people of Cyprus with this meeting? We must never forget that it is not just the three guarantor Powers who are concerned in this matter—it is equally the people of Cyprus. It may very well be that there are a large number of Greek Cypriots who do not wish to be so closely associated with Greece as they have been in the past, and who may in future give more dramatic demonstrations of that
1432
wish. Perhaps I could ask the noble Lord that question.
Other than that, I do not think that I should like to comment, because these meetings will be very important and I do not think it is helpful to make a series of statements at this stage.
Finally, I should like to associate myself with what the noble Lord has said about the British Services in Cyprus who do, as always, what we expect of them but perhaps too often take for granted.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, I should like to associate my colleagues on these Benches with what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has said about the great satisfaction we all have in the armistice and to express likewise the most sincere congratulations to the Foreign Secretary for his part in bringing it off. I should also like to say that we sympathise very much with the families of the two victims. It is indeed lucky in the circumstances that there were not more of them. And that, I believe, was largely due to the very successful action of the British Army in evacuating so many people from Nicosia under extremely difficult circumstances, something for which we must be profoundly grateful to the Army.
I should like to ask two questions: where at the moment are Sampson and his fellow conspirators? Are they somewhere in the island? Have they also agreed to the ceasefire, or is it only the Greek Government? Because if the Greek and Turkish Governments have agreed to a ceasefiere and Mr. Sampson has not, what is the resulting situation? It must be rather embarrassing for both. But perhaps he also agreed to the ceasefire? In that case, I hope there is no possibility or suggestion that there will be any negotiations with Sampson or with anybody associated with him. The situation in this respect seems to be a little confused and perhaps we may have more clarification about it.
Secondly, I imagine that in the forthcoming negotiations in Geneva the object so far as we are concerned will surely be to reconstitute some kind of democratic régime in Nicosia—the alternatives being either a dictatorship or partition, both of which are bad. I should be glad to hear that the Government do not share such objectives in any way. Finally, since the

1433
injunction of the United Nations Security Council in favour of a ceasefire has happily been obeyed by the principal parties concerned, is it now going to fade out of the picture, or has it any further rôle in the settlement of the dispute?
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, it is hardly necessary to say how much we on these Benches appreciate all that has been done and the relief that we feel at the cessation of hostilities. But I should like to express my appreciation of the latter part of the Statement which laid stress on the restoration of constitutional rule in Cyprus, and to say that I greatly hope that this will not be one more example of a successful military revolution.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, not for the first time may I, without presumption, commend the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for the statesmanlike quality of his comments on the Statement in a very difficult and dangerous situation—one of continuing danger and difficulty—and to join him once more in commending the exemplary services which our men in Cyprus have rendered during these past terrible days. May 1 also thank him for the sympathy which he and the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, expressed to the relatives of those who, unfortunately, were killed in these happenings. As to the future composition of the conference in Geneva, I understand that it will be for the three guarantor Powers, who will meet in the first instance, to decide as to who in an added capacity—whether participatory in the full sense of the term, or in an observing capacity—should be admitted. I think we can leave that to the first session of the conference.
In relation to what the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said, I have no know ledge of where Sampson and his—I believe the noble Lord described them as "confederates"—
LORD GLADWYN: Fellow conspirators.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: I bow to superior vocabulary—fellow conspirators are at the moment. In regard to who has agreed to a ceasefire, may I say that it is the Government of Greece and the Government of Turkey and, I am sure, the lawful Government of Cyprus in
1434
the person of the Archbishop Makarios. That is good enough to start with. I would thank the right reverend Prelate for echoing what the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said about the—
LORD GLADWYN: I asked about the Security Council.
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: The important point in regard to the continuing interest and rôle of the Security Council is that we have kept very closely in touch with the Secretary-General, and in that way with the Security Council, throughout, from the start, and this will undoubtedly continue. I was on the point of commending, if I may do so, the right reverend Prelate for echoing what the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, said about the need to restore constitutional and democratic Government to Cyprus.
LORD DUNCAN-SANDYS: My Lords, I warmly welcome the decision of Her Majesty's Government to assume what I believe is essentially a British responsibility as the neutral member of the three guarantor Powers; that is, the role of mediator. I also welcome the convening of this conference of the three Governments concerned. May I ask the noble Lord whether the Government recognise—as I am sure they do—that very quickly it will be necessary to negotiate very difficult and delicate negotiations on the spot, not just between the three Governments at Geneva but on the spot between the four parties which are concerned in the fighting, for the practical implementation of the ceasefire agreement, as I myself had to do in 1963? May I also ask whether a senior Minister will be sent as soon as possible to Cyprus to do what he can to help to consolidate the ceasefire?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, certainly every means will be taken to ensure that we have full information about the situation in the island. Whether or not it takes the form of sending out a Minister, I cannot say to-day. But we are seized of the very important point just made by the noble Lord, Lord Duncan-Sandys; namely, that there is a continuing danger here because of the inter-communal strife which is proceeding—and may, for all we know, be escalated—even though there is a ceasefire among Governments and official forces. I would

1435
not wish to minimise the difficulty and danger of the situation. I will certainly pass on to my right honourable friend the suggestion—I took it as a suggestion—that a Minister might be sent to Cyprus.
3.50 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether there is any information available about the attitude of those associated with the so-called new régime under Sampson? Surely some information must be available? Are they accepting the ceasefire? Are they remaining quiet and not causing any trouble at all? Would he also answer this question: Is it not true what the guarantors guaranteed was independence for Cyprus, and can we understand that that is to be the attitude of my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and Her Majesty's Government?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, on the first point, we are not in touch with Sampson and his confederates. The ceasefire has been agreed by the Governments of Greece and Turkey. In relation to the Government's view of how things should proceed in Cyprus, I can give an unqualified assurance that it will be in the form of a restoration of constitutional democratic government.
LORD MAYBRAY-KING: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us wish to join in congratulating the Government and all who brought this ceasefire about, and would especially congratulate the Army on the brilliant evacuation yesterday of so many civilians from Nicosia? Is he also aware that some of us are still worried about the British citizens in the Eastern part of the Island? There was some talk in earlier reports that we had to withdraw the evacuation efforts that we were seeking to make to get to the British citizens scattered in the Eastern part of the Island. Can the noble Lord assure us that these efforts will go on?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, every effort we have made—and we have been assiduous right from the start of this affair—to safeguard the lives of British tourists and residents, has been dictated by the paramount need to ensure their safety. The truly remarkable achievement of the Army in organising
1436
over 60 miles a convoy which brought safely into haven some thousands of tourists and others will certainly be emulated regarding the 200 or so British citizens which I understand are scattered along the Northern coast of Cyprus. Whether the safest way to do it is by maritime evacuation or to have another convoy-type overland operation, must be carefully decided on the advice of those on the spot. How to complete "operation safety", as I would call it, is uppermost in our minds.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, can the noble Lord enlarge on his reply to my noble friend Lord Duncan-Sandys about the inter-communal strife? Is it a case of scattered sporadic incidents, or something better described as a general flare-up?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, my right honourable friend used the phrase "… is now dying down." This is an exact description of what is happening as the ceasefire takes hold. Inter-communal strife was a feature of the general crisis and proceeded parallel with the international action. While we expect a diminishing incidence of local affrays of that kind—and I do not want to put this too high—one is optimistic that there will be a diminishing number of such incidents. Those on the spot, with the influence of the Turkish and Greek Governments behind them, will surely endeavour to ensure that inter-communal strife, equally with international hostilities, will now cease.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the deep appreciation we have of the role of the Government during the past two or three days when there has been great pressure from one direction or another? All of us want to congratulate the Government on what they have achieved. Is my noble friend also aware we are tremendously appreciative of what the military forces have done in enabling the residents to leave the Island?
The Conference at Geneva will be between the three Governments which have guaranteed independence and integrity. May I repeat the question of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington: What is to be done to obtain communication with the people of Cyprus themselves? After all,

1437
they are the main element. In view of the fact that the constitutional Government has been overthrown by a coup, will the Conference at Geneva be followed up by some contact with the representatives of the people of Cyprus to decide their democratic and, if they desire, unaligned future?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, I appreciate what my noble Lord has said in his first two comments. As to participation in the Conference, I will repeat what I said to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. In the first instance, as required by the Treaty of Agreement of 1960, the three guarantor Powers should come together in Geneva. It will be a matter for them to decide who in addition should attend, either in a fully participatory or in an observing capacity. 1 note what has been said by my noble friend as well as by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, about the essential importance of consulting the people of Cyprus on their future.
LORD GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, may I from a special position express to Her Majesty's Government and our Forces my deep congratulations on what has been done? There has been so much suggestion in recent days that Her Majesty's Government were doing the wrong thing, that the American Government were doing the wrong thing and that the United Nations were doing nothing. It is a source of great gratification that through the efforts of the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, and others, not only has a ceasefire been achieved, but a resolution of the Security Council was passed which enjoined the parties to do something, and they did it. This is encouraging for those who have the future of the United Nations at heart. Could the Minister expand on the matter of Nicosia in this sense: Many people who have business connections in that city are still anxious about the situation there. Is it safe to say that, so far as we know, other than the two casualties which the Minister mentioned, no British subject has come to harm? I imagine it is difficult to say where everybody is, but can one be fairly sure that this is right?
LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, to the best of my knowledge and that of my Department, no other British
1438
subject has come to any appreciable harm. I say "appreciable harm" because many thousands have suffered more than inconvenience. Many have suffered from sickness and illness during the past few days. But, regarding fatalities, I can give my noble friend that assurance. May I say how glad I was to hear the noble Lord pay tribute to the United Nations, because the passage of Resolution 353 was followed by decisive action. This is of great encouragement and hope for the future.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I did not intervene earlier because this is an important Statement, but I was hoping that we might, through the usual communications, get news that there had been clearance for the Statement to be made about Northern Ireland. I am now informed that this will not now be made until after the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Statement—and I have no idea how long another place will take on that. I do not wish to intervene in the course of a speech by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, but I wonder whether the usual channels might have a look at the Statement and decide whether it should be made in your Lordships' House. If it is not made, clearly we can avoid yet another intervention in an important Committee stage and one that may be of considerable length. I am entirely in the hands of the House in this respect.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I am sure it is the wish of the House not to have a second interruption during the Committee stage proceedings on the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill. Since the noble Lord the Leader of the House is not able to give us an indication of when the Statement on Northern Ireland is likely to be made, I think it would be better, subject to the views of any other noble Lord who is interested in this matter, to include the Statement in Hansard. As it happens, I have had an opportunity to study the Statement on the subject of Harland and Wolff. It is an important one, but relatively speaking in terms of Northern Ireland it is one of detail rather than of principle, and might be handled in the way suggested.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, I and, I think, my colleagues would agree with that course of action and that we should

1439
get on with the Committee stage of the Bill.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in the light of what noble Lords opposite have said, and if it is the wish of your Lordships' House, we will not take the Statement.
Following is the Statement referred to:

NORTHERN IRELAND: HARLAND AND WOLFF
"With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and with that of the House, I wish to make a Statement on Harland and Wolff, on behalf of my right honourable Friend the Secretary of State, who is at this moment in Northern Ireland, where he will be speaking to representatives of the firm's management and labour. The firm is facing increasingly serious financial difficulties.
"The right honourable Member for Cambridgeshire informed tie House on December 21, 1973, before the completion of detailed discussions with Harland and Wolff, about proposals to provide further financial support to the company. My right honourable Friend investigated the matter in March, 1974. Subsequent discussions revealed the company's continuing inability to meet its production targets and the inadequacy of the previous proposals for providing it with further assistance. Revised figures were received on July 5. The financial consequences of these are quite clear. If the company is to continue trading, further Government financial support is required urgently. The amount involved, which cannot yet be calculated precisely, is likely to be very substantially in excess of that considered necessary last December. The proposal then was that £10 million of debt owed to the Government should be replaced by the issue to the Government of shares; and that the Government should provide guarantee facilities for up to £10 million as needed up to the end of 1976.
"Harland and Wolff occupies a unique place in the Northern Ireland economy. It is the largest single manufacturing employer, providing between 5 per cent. and 6 per cent. of all jobs in the manufacturing sector. Since 1966 the Company has received financial assistance totalling £68 million from both the United Kingdom and former Northern Ireland Governments, by way of standard and special grants, loan and equity participation.
"It is against the special Northern Ireland background that the Government's proposals for dealing with the present situation should be viewed.
"The Northern Ireland Department of Commerce already holds 47·6 per cent. of the company's equity. With a view to providing additional finance and in order to bring about
1440
the changes which the Government believes to be necessary, we have decided to extend that holding. This will be achieved, subject to the approval of the shareholders, by the acquisition of additional shares in the company to give the Government a substantial majority in an expanded equity; this will be effected under Section 7 of the Industry Act 1972. It is not envisaged that this will involve the acquisition of shares from existing private shareholders. The Industrial Development Advisory Board has been informed of the general situation. Because of the urgency of the matter we are adopting this relatively simple course; but the possibility of proceeding to full public ownership in Northern Ireland at a later date is not precluded. Meanwhile, we shall have a large enough stage to ensure control. Initially the additional equity will need to be held by Her Majesty's Government, but it is clearly most desirable that, in the longer term, the responsibility for this Northern Ireland registered company, which is such a prominent feature of the Ulster economy, should rest completely in Northern Ireland. The detailed arrangements are being worked out in consultation with the company and its advisers and I would hope to report further to the House in due course.
"The Government intend that there shall be a comprehensive review of Harland's management structure and resources, a full examination of the order book, a temporary moratorium on any new ship-building orders, strenuous action to reduce overheads and the implementation of realistic manpower policies and training arrangements capable of securing any necessary increase in the labour force in a manner compatible with the manpower needs of the rest of industry in Northern Ireland and with the untapped resources of the Northern Ireland labour market. For example, it will be important to increase greatly the volume of apprentice training in order to ensure a succession of skill in the yard and spread the opportunity for the acquisition of skill more widely within the community.
"To achieve these changes and improvements we need to advance towards genuine worker participation in all the decision making processes of the company. I have already talked at length to management and unions, and it is my intention, in consultation with the management of the company, the shop stewards in the yard, the Northern Ireland trades unions and the T.U.C. to consider full participation in management by representatives of all employed in the firm. I shall begin the detailed discussions to-morrow in meetings with the 200 or more shop stewards in the yard and with a similar number of men from the middle management of the company. I am convinced that if we can achieve this participation in management, along with a return to full collective bargaining, we shall be laying a solid foundation for the introduction of whatever measures are needed to obtain the increases in productivity which are essential to the company's survival. Comprehensive machinery will be instituted to monitor progress in implementing all these developments.
"This is a rescue operation. The consequences for Belfast and Northern Ireland of allowing the yard to close, as it would have to do if the Government did not intervene, would be disastrous. Nevertheless, this must not be regarded by those working for the company as an open-ended Government subvention. This is being done for the sake of Northern Ireland and the only way it can be done is by finding, to the extent necessary, compensating off-setting savings in public expenditure from within the Province. These will be achieved without departing from parity in the cash social services and without detriment to the Government's social and economic objectives for the areas of especially severe unemployment.
"While earlier expectations in regard to the performance of Harland and Wolff have not been fulfilled, the modernisation and re-equipment programme has proceeded apace and the shipyard is now one of the best equipped in Europe. It remains to harness the skill, pride and latent enthusiasm of all those employed in the firm to achieve the immense potential of the undertaking."

TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS BILL
4.4 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself again into a Committee on the Bill.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER in the Chair.]
Clause 2 [Status of trade unions]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 2, line 43, after ("this section") insert ("and section 4 below").
The noble and learned Lord said: If your Lordships agree I think it will be convenient to take Amendments Nos. 4 and 6 together. These are purely technical Amendments consequential on the introduction into the Bill in another place of a new clause which is now Clause 4. Previously the provisions of that clause were to be found in Ciauses 2 and 3, but for convenience they have been assembled in Clause 4. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE THE EARL OF GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 3, line 12, leave out from ("voidable") to end of line 16.
The noble Earl said: It might be for the convenience of the Committee, while in our conventional manner I move this Amendment and Amendment No. 7 separately, that we should debate them together as they deal substantively with the same point. The key point in these Amendments is our view of this Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill as it stands. There is, of course, a fairly radical difference of viewpoint between the two sides of the Committee here. Our view is that the Bill limits the rights of courts to provide Common Law remedies in favour of individuals who are arbitrarily excluded or expelled from trade unions. We feel that the position is at very best not clear. But our position is clear. It is that when there is any doubt in a matter of this kind, that doubt should be resolved in favour of the individual.
We accept of course the point that noble Lords opposite have frequently made in general debates on the subject, that trade unions rarely misuse their powers against individuals: trade unions are organisations which grew into being to protect individuals who had few powers themselves and therefore it is hardly likely that they would make a great practice of trampling on rights. But we feel that in any human organisation fallibility and error can occur, and that the Bill provides a loophole for abuse. We believe that any loophole should be stopped up. We recognise the point made by the Minister of State for Employment in Committee in another place, that individuals can be unreasonable and can have unreasonable recourse to law and involve organisations in tedious and expensive litigation. Even in organisations which are there to represent the best interests of their members, one can of course have difficult members. But the Minister also said—and perhaps this is the important point—that the Bill does not and is not intended to reduce Common Law rights. We feel that that is a fine statement of intent, but we do not see that intent backed up by legal opinion on the Bill as it stands.
The Law Officers of the previous Government, the Government of my noble friends, regularly attended debates on the Industrial Relations Bill, and I believe that if the present Law Officers had been given a run over this course we might have been clearer on the point.
But it was not to be, and we have had to rely on the Minister's reply. I should therefore very much like to hear what the Government have to say on this point at this stage.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: As the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, has said, the effect of these Amendments, Nos. 5 and 7, is to remove the provision that a rule of a trade union or of an employers' association shall not be unlawful or unenforceable by reason only that it is in restraint of trade. Clauses 2(5) and 3(5) maintain the protection which is at present afforded by Section 135 of the Industrial Relations Act 1971 against prosecution for civil conspiracy or the invalidation of agreements in trust on the ground only that the organisation is in restraint of trade. This protection was, as the Committee will know, originally conferred by Sections 2 and 3 of the Trade Union Act 1871, and in the case of Faramus v. Film Artistes' Association of 1963, the House of Lords (which is still, after all, the final court of decision, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, said in such clear terms in a case not so long ago) upheld a majority decision by the Court of Appeal that Section 3 of the 1871 Act protected the rules as well as the purposes of a trade union. However, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, took the minority view that Section 3 did not leave unions free to make any rule however unreasonable it was in restraint of trade. And in the subsequent case of Edwards v. Society of Graphical and Allied Trades in 1971, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and Lord Justice Sachs, again in the Court of Appeal, offered obiter which implied that the protection of Section 3 might be set aside determining that certain purposes in the rule were not proper to a trade union.
The provisions which would be deleted by these two Amendments were added to the general protection in order to remove any uncertainty which may have resulted from this previous case law to which I have referred. While it is arguable that with the repeal of the 1971 Act, and the authority of the judgment of the House of Lords in Faramus, the additional provisions may not be essential, it is the feeling of the Government that it is wise to remove a potential area
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of uncertainty and desirable in order that rules which reflect the wishes of a majority of members are not rendered ineffective.
Perhaps I ought to reassure the Committee by saying that members will of course continue to enjoy the protection the courts will give them by reason of the application of the principles of natural justice which have been declared and propounded so clearly since the war, and the words would not necessarily prevent a court from nullifying a rule which it found to be unlawful on some ground other than restraint of trade. So in my submission the words which the noble Earl by these two Amendments is seeking to omit do no more than make explicit what has already been decided authoritatively by the House of Lords.
I do not know that I need to traverse the familiar ground of the protection which the Common Law and the courts give to the individual who may be affected by capricious or arbitrary interference with his right to work either by admission rules, which are capricious or arbitrary, or alternatively by expulsion rules or practice which would be a denial of justice to him. The courts can intervene, and have intervened very readily, if the rules themselves are unlawful or have not been adhered to or if, in applying the rules, the principles of justice have not been observed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and I have been in a number of cases where these principles have been so determinedly asserted by the courts and they have shown a willingness to adopt a searching approach in regard to possible breaches of rule. I do not want, therefore, to give the impression that the individual trade unionist in a given case is exposed and unprotected. The Common Law provides protection, and, as we shall hear in debate on further Amendments, the Government are looking anxiously, and will do so between now and the next phase of the package on industrial relations, at appellate procedures which might be appropriate and suitable to provide even more protection.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for citing the case of Faramus and the case of Edwards v. The Society of Graphical and Allied Trades because I was going to ask him whether he could tell us a little about them. On many occasions

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when working in your Lordships' House I have regretted my own lack of legal training At this point, had I been a lawyer no doubt I should have eagerly leapt in to draw attention to the case of Nagle v. Fielding in which a woman who had been refused a licence to train horses applied for a declaration against the stewards of the Jockey Club. That may have made a lively parenthesis to our debate and no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, would have come into the debate at that point.
Away from the legal side, our problem is that the 1871 Act limits the Common Law rights of individuals in favour of unions and we accept that; but we find that the limitation under Section 3 of the Act applies to "purposes" and not to "rules". The Bill explicitly extends that proteotion to rules—a vital difference. Not all rules are necessarily covered by the word "purposes". Therefore there is in the Bill a distinct extension of the principle and we are worried, as noble Lords will know, about the extension of rights under this Bill. We believe that legislation should as clearly as possible enshrine the principles upon which the whole of society and not just a sectional interest, however important or powerful, is based.
If the Government had altered the Bill along the lines suggested, an important principle would have been strengthened. As I said earlier, when in doubt I think that we should err on the side of the individual. We feel, therefore, that there is an unfortunate wording here and we should like to place that on the Record. However, at this stage we shall not press the Amendment, which I beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Status of employers' associations]:
LORD SHEPHERD: I think that my noble friend spoke to this Amendment when he moved Amendment No. 4. I beg to move.
Amendmentmoved—
Page 3, line 43, after ("this section") insert ("and section 4 below").—(Lord Shepherd.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4 agreed to.
4.15 p.m.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE moved Amendment No. 8:
After Clause 4 insert the following new Clause
"(1) Subject to the provisions of this Section every worker shall have the right not to be—

(a) excluded from membership;

(b) expelled from membership

of a trade union or a branch or section of a trade union by way of arbitrary or unreasonable discrimination.

(2) The exclusion or expulsion of a worker from membership of a union, branch or section shall not be deemed to be arbitrary or unreasonable if the worker is of a description different from that or those of the majority of the members of that union, branch or section (as the case may be) or does not possess the appropriate qualifications for such membership.

(3) A worker aggrieved by his exclusion or expulsion from any trade union, branch or section may apply to an industrial tribunal in accordance with industrial tribunal regulations for a declaration that he is entitled to be a member of that union, branch or section.

(4) Where any such declaration has been made and has not been implemented by the union, branch or section concerned within any period specified in the declaration or if no such period is specified within a reasonable period, the worker may apply to the High Court or in Scotland the Court of Session for an injunction, interdict or such other relief (including compensation) as the Court may think just and expedient in all the circumstances of the case.

(5) Nothing in this Section or otherwise in this Act contained shall prejudice or in any way reduce the Common Law rights of a person who has applied to join but not been given membership of or who claims to be and to remain a member of or who has been expelled from a trade union."

The noble and learned Lord said: Such is the state of the papers in this case that I am not sure whether I shall be moving the right new clause or whether, if I do, anybody else will have read what I propose. The one which I am going to move is the one about exclusions and expulsions. As, in fact, the condition of the papers is such that I cannot assume that all noble Lords will have read it, I had better just rise to explain what the new clause is about.
Subsection (1) of the proposed new clause gives to every worker the right not to be excluded from membership of a trade union, or a branch or a section of a trade union, and the right not to be expelled from membership of the same

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bodies by way of arbitrary or unreasonable discrimination. Subsection (2) of the new clause is a saving clause which is designed to make it clear that this right of non-exclusion or non-expulsion for arbitrary or unreasonable discrimination does not apply to members who are otherwise unsuitable either by reason of a want of qualification or by reason of being a different type of worker. Subsection (3) provides that if a worker wants to assert his right and claims that he has been aggrieved by his exclusion or expulsion he can apply to an industrial tribunal for a declaration that he is entitled to be a member. That is the effective right of reference to an impartial body—in this case the industrial tribunal. Subsection (4) provides the only effective sanction. If he obtains the declaration that he is right and if, in fact the union proves intransigent, he can be given an injunction—"interdict" is a purely Scottish term which means the same thing—and such other relief, including compensation, as the High Court, or in Scotland the Court of Session, may think just and expedient in all the circumstances. Subsection (5) saves the worker's Common Law rights which, as the noble and learned Lord who has now disappeared below the firing step was explaining a moment or two ago, are not entirely negligible although, in our view, they are inadequate.
If I may give the history of this new clause in a sentence or two, it was discussed in another place on Report, and the other place divided 301 for the Amendment and 302 against it. It might not be in order for me to inquire whether, of that 302, one was the elusive Mr. Lever whom we read about in the Press because we do not seek to probe into the mysteries of the private procedure of another place; but it was the same day of the week as those episodes which we all read about in the newspaper took place. At any rate, with a Division in another place so closely balanced as 302 to 301, the subject is one which clearly deserves and merits consideration by this House, and it may be that if noble Lords will, as I hope, accept the Amendment and this House agrees to put it in, then another place may welcome a chance to consider the matter afresh, possibly with a different result in the light of your Lordships' opinions.
With respect, I would regard this as a real test of the Government's good faith in this matter. Nothing was more remarkable during the course of our extremely friendly Second Reading debate upon this hotly-contested subject, than the Government's insistence, and the insistence of the Government's supporters on the Back-Benches opposite, upon the unimpeachable authority of the late Lord Donovan, his person and his Report. If there is one certain fact about the late Lord Donovan's opinion, it is that he would have supported this Amendment, since unless I am mistaken this was one of the matters about which the Donovan Report was unanimous; that given the power of a union over the future chance of the individual worker of earning a living, either by excluding him from membership or, alternatively, by expelling him from membership if he already had it, some recourse to an independent body in the case of arbitrary and unreasonable discrimination ought to be given to the worker to save his livelihood. That was in the Donovan Report and, unless I am very much mistaken, it was in In Place of Strife and I cannot conceive of any good reason for not putting it in this Bill.
The excuse which the Government and the noble and learned Lord, who has not yet emerged from the firing step, gave on Second Reading was that something is coming. We were not exactly told what, but we were told that something is coming in the second stage of this so-called "package". I hope the Committee will think that that is not quite good enough. No doubt if noble Lords get a chance to introduce the second stage of their package, they sincerely intend to put in something really good. But we are not told what it is to be and, in the meantime, there seems to be no reason why something should not be there as from the date when this Bill will take effect in law.
There does not seem to me to be any reason in merit against our proposal and if there were I—speaking for myself and I expect for my colleagues—should be perfectly willing to put it right. We propose that a worker should not be excluded arbitrarily or unjustly, or discriminated against. We suggest that he should not be expelled arbitrarily and I suppose that very few people in this

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House would come to a contrary view. If that be the view of the Committee, I submit that there can be no reason at all why he should not put his case before an independent tribunal.
The industrial tribunals are expressly preserved by this Bill as being suitable for, I would have thought, this type of dispute. Therefore, between the two sides of the Committee at least there can be no real challenge as to their impartiality or capacity to handle this type of dispute, and the provision in subsection (4) for the High Court or the Court of Session to implement the decision of the industrial tribunal represents the minimum degree of justice to which I should have thought a worker in that position would be entitled. In those circumstances, I do not think I need paint the lily; good wine needs no bush. I beg to move.
4.25 p.m.
LORD HOUGHTON OF SOWERBY: I am wholly in sympathy with the purpose of this clause. Nevertheless, I think it would be unwise for the Committee to write this new clause into the Bill. During the tripartite talks to which I referred in my maiden speech last Tuesday, a number of us strongly pressed the Trades Union Congress to accept a provision of this kind, but they raised numerous difficulties, both of application and enforcement. Moreover, they felt somewhat slighted that we should insist on provisions of this kind applying to trade unions, without at the same time doing something about the disciplinary procedures of some of the professional bodies.
We failed to get agreement then with the T.U.C., and the Secretary of State has stated in another place that the Government have failed to get agreement with the T.U.C. since then. Indeed, the Secretary of State said that the Government had it in mind in the first place to include in the Bill an opportunity for reference to an independent tribunal by a trade union member who felt seriously aggrieved at expulsion or exclusion from membership, but he said that the T.U.C. had objected. I think there comes a time when Parliament has to insist on certain rights being established for the citizen, even though interested parties object. Nevertheless, I think it would
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be wise of your Lordships to give the Government an opportunity to pursue this matter further with the T.U.C.
If there were not a further Bill promised to deal with protection of employment, I myself would vote in favour of this new clause. But a second stage in the trade union legislation has been promised, and in another place the Secretary of State asked for an opportunity to discuss the matter with the trade unions with a view to the inclusion in the Statute Law at a later stage of some code of practice. I think it would be a mistake to insist in the meantime on this new clause forming part of this Bill.
Experience has shown how difficult it is to enforce the law on masses of workers, and some of the clauses in the Industrial Relations Act 1971, though theoretically sound, were in practice ineffective. Indeed, a great deal of the trouble that arose under that Act was because of an attempt at enforcement of what on paper seemed to be reasonable provisions in that Act, which shows how important it is to try to legislate by agreement on matters affecting large numbers of workers who have considerable collective power, and upon whom some very reasonable provisions cannot be imposed without considerable good will on their part to make them effective.
Trade union members are not compelled to work with workers whom they feel have not fulfilled their obligations as workers and trade unionists, and we have seen how impossible it is to compel workers to accept inter-union membership of those whom they feel are unsuited for it, or are disqualified from it. I think that this is a matter of wisdom rather than of principle. The principle is clear, and I am sure it is a principle that should be accepted by the trade union movement. As I said earlier, if there is failure to reach agreement, then Parliament has to decide to impose its own will, but we have not reached that stage yet. I believe that in the next phase there will be an opportunity to put this matter right. This is one of the babies that goes out with the bath water with the repeal of the Industrial Relations Act, 1971. But so much that was good in the 1971 Act is unacceptable in the context of that Act, and must be renewed and brought into the law—if it is to be brought

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into the law—in a new relationship unconnected with an Act of Parliament which in toto the trade union movement found reprehensible, punitive and unacceptable.
I beg your Lordships not to write this new clause into the Bill. It would be unwise to do so. It will not achieve its purpose. It will deprive the T.U.C. of an opportunity of negotiating further on this matter, and the Government, if they are strong enough to insist that something should be done, will be able to reach agreement with the T.U.C. I respectfully suggest that your Lordships should be wise and should not blindly adhere to a matter of principle. There should be an opportunity for this matter to be dealth with by the process of further discussion and negotiation, rather than precipitating it into the Bill at this stage.
4.30 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: I should have thought that everybody accepts the submission made by my noble friend Lord Houghton, that Parliament is supreme. There can be no question about that. Indeed, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, admitted that Parliament was supreme, even by a majority of one. I think it was the late Sir Winston Churchill who said. "A majority of one is enough". We can accept that, not necessarily because it was the view of the late Sir Winston Churchill, but because of the fact that in another place there is a majority of one—and we can leave out the Lever episode and other episodes for further consideration. Nevertheless, I support the submission that we have just heard.
If it is our desire to improve industrial relations, the last thing we ought to do is to leave the trade union movement and the T.U.C. at this stage with a sense of grievance. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, thinks it fit to listen to the submission I am making, I should like to repeat it. It would be a mistake to leave the T.U.C. and the trade union movement with a sense of grievance. So far as I am concerned, I do not object—
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: I was trying to find out what the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said. The noble Lord usually speaks quite plainly,
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but on this occasion, for some reason which I cannot explain, what he actually said did not reach our corner of the House.
LORD SHINWELL: I am responsible for many misdemeanours, but not for the acoustics of your Lordships' House, for which the blame must be laid elsewhere. I dislike repetition, either from myself or from other Members of your Lordships' House; we are all too familiar with it, and we object. However, on this occasion I repeat that it is undesirable at this stage, in a matter of this kind, to leave the T.U.C. and the trade union movement with a sense of grievance. Obviously, there will be such. Personally, 1 do not object to having a variety of grievances. I recall the debate in another place on a proposition to reform your Lordships' House. I found myself in the position of rejecting every argument for reform. My principal argument was—and this has a bearing on the subject under review—that the Labour Party must have a grievance. If anything goes wrong, blame the House of Lords. So I would not object to a grievance system; it would be very handy, particularly at election time, and for propaganda purposes.
I should like now to address myself to the argument adduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham. The noble and learned Lord said, in effect, that he would not mind accepting what is contained in this proposed legislation, provided the second part of the package could rectify what might be regarded as a grievance. I should have thought that was the last argument he should have adduced, because the noble and learned Lord has said over and over again that there is not a chance for the Labour Party to be returned at the next election, so why should he worry? If the Conservatives are returned, he can put it right. Is that not enough. On the other hand, if by some political misadventure the Labour Party is returned, the assurance has been given that the matter will be rectified. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, wins either way. If the Tory Government return to power, they put the matter right; if the Labour Government come in they have promised to put it right, so there you are.
One further point. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, referred

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to action that is arbitrarily taken against some person who was expelled from a trade union. What is meant by "arbitrarily"? What is the definition? Es it not open to a variety of interpretations It depends on the point of view of what is arbitrary. What is regarded as arbitrary by someone who is adversely affected might differ substantially from a definition acceptable to those who undertake the Act. Therefore, I do not believe that the question of what is arbitrary action has anything at all to do with the case.
I support my noble friend Lord Houghton in asking your Lordships' House not to press this matter. Not that we will trouble about a Division. We understand there is a majority in this House for anything the Conservative Party wants. We have no levens in your Lordships' House; no trouble of that kind is likely to occur. If those on the Opposition Benches want to defeat the Government, they are open to do it; there is nothing to prevent them. They do not have a majority in this Chamber at the present time, but they have a majority in the precincts of the building. Over and over again I have seen scores of Opposition Members, who have not heard a word of the debate, come rushing in, inquiring, "What's it all about?" I have heard them time and time again. Then they vote accordingly, not according to the merits of the question. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, talked about dealing with the merits of the question. How seldom do those Members of your Lordships' House who assist in a Division against the Labour Party—whether or not we are on the Opposition or Government side—take note of what has actually been said in the course of the debate! Therefore, I support my noble friend Lord Houghton, and I ask your Lordships not to press this matter. If they insist on ventilating a grievance, then we have just got to accept it.
4.39 p.m.
LORD FEATHER: May I support what has been said by my noble friends Lord Houghton and Lord Shinwell. May I give further substance to the appeal to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, about this particular clause. I would have gone on to Clause 9(2) using similar words, but I understand that is out of order at this stage. I hope that what I am saying will
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be borne in mind in relation to Amendment No. 9. I should like this new clause much better if it said,
"Subject to the provisions of this section every worker is expected to be a member of a trade union".
and then went on to say
"and shall have the right not to be excluded from membership or expelled from membership".
I want to point out that in the rules of the overwhelming majority of unions it is explicitely stated that people have the right of appeal in respect of these matters; even in respect of being excluded from membership. When an application is made to a branch and the branch rejects the application, the workman is entitled, notwithstanding that he is not a member, to proceed by way of the rules and to ask for the matter to be examined by the appeals committee of the union. In general, it is not the function of trade unions to-day to exclude people from becoming members or to expel them from membership, except for non-implementation of the rules in particular circumstances. It is the intention of unions to gain members. Therefore, this clause is a little bit tautological in its attitude, if I may say so.
On the other hand, I accept the general principle, in that here set out in Amendment No. 8 is what, in practice, is done by unions to ensure natural justice. I query this reference to "arbitrary or unreasonable" discrimination, because most union executive committees, and certainly most branch committees, do not accept that when they exclude someone from membership or expel them from membership they are doing anything arbitrary or unreasonable. It is a conflict between what is reasonable and unreasonable, perhaps as between the branch committee and the person under discipline.
As I see it, there are four stages here. First of all, in the natural sequence of events, the member will have a right of appeal within the union rules, within the union machinery. In many cases, in order to try to establish a sense of fairness, which is obvious, unions have put the appeals machinery outside the union membership itself; they have transferred that responsibility for listening to appeals to the T.U.C. or to people they have nominated. The Electrical Trades Union,

1455
under its new title, has afforded this responsibility to the T.U.C. to nominate people who are not members of the E.T.U. at all. There is a right of appeal in the Musician's Union ultimately to people who are not members of that union, but they are, of course, of the trade union movement in the wider sense. I could mention several unions with similar provisions.
Here, as I see it, when a person has gone through the appeals machinery of his own union, which can be extensive, he can then proceed to an industrial tribunal, if that is his opinion; that is, the opinion of the member and not of the union. There is then provision for him to go to the High Court, if he is still aggrieved, and if he does not get judgment in his favour he will still be aggrieved. Then he can go further to make claims under Common Law. That seems to me to be a procedure which is extensive. I am not querying the sense of justice which is there, but it seems a little heavy for shop stewards, or people involved in these matters, to understand.
I think a much simpler sort of proposition could be put down—and undoubtedly will be put down—in the consideration and advice given by the T.U.C. on these matters. As a matter of fact, prior to the Industrial Relations Act 1971, the T.U.C. were engaged in precisely this kind of operation, to ensure not only that there was fairness—because that was generally applicable—but that the fairness was seen by everyone, devising methods whereby members could appeal and whereby people who were excluded from membership could appeal. Those were, in general, people who were appealing to be allowed to be members of a union, where the closed shop was operative as a pre-entry arrangement.
I should like to support the noble Lords, Lord Houghton and Lord Shin-well, in asking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, to take this Amend"ment back and not to press it at this stage. I do not think there is any need to press it. There will be a later stage and the principles, if not the exact wording, can be looked at by the unions. There is nothing in this Amendment which departs from the general principles of fairness which the trade unions themselves want to enforce.
4.45 p.m.
LORD ROCHESTER: I can well understand the difference of opinion to which this Amendment gives rise. As a Liberal, I suppose I should be utterly opposed to the whole principle of a closed shop. I do not find it as easy as that, because for a number of years I was responsible for negotiating with trade unions on behalf of a large industrial organisation, and I saw some of the advantages of the closed shop, or, at any rate in appropriate cases, 100 per cent. union membership. But, as I see it, we are now in a different situation, because for the first time under this Bill the law is coming into play and the closed shop is to have the sanction of the law.
In these circumstances, it seems to me that common justice demands that the law should also provide for some machinery under which union members who are expelled, or people who are excluded from a union, should have the right to make an appeal against a union's decision. In my own experience on this question of union membership, I can recall cases affecting both general worker unions and craft unions, and indeed even including supervisors, in which the absence of any machinery for appeals within a union would have penalised unfairly the person concerned, and would have made much more difficult the task of management in intervening with the union on that person's behalf.
It will be said—indeed, as I understood the noble Lord, Lord Feather, he has said—that all this simply goes to show that within the trade union movement there is appeals machinery. I know that there often is. The difference now is that the closed shop is to have legal backing, and it therefore seems to me that there should be some legally enforceable and independent machinery by which in all cases there is this opportunity to appeal against a union's decision. As the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, said, it is of course possible, whatever the state of the law, that people will decide to take, or will threaten to take, industrial action on this issue of the closed shop. I do not accept that as an argument against this Amendment. In my experience, there are a number of reasons why people decide to take industrial action or, in the last resort, to withdraw their labour. One of the things they take into account is

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what might be called the general climate of opinion on the particular question. My view of is that the state of law at any given time still has an effect on the action which people take in that way.
I should like to mention a body for which I have a good deal of respect, and I know Members on all sides of your Lordships' House have a similar respect for it; that is, the Industrial Society. That is mainly because it is run by a council which consists not only of employer representatives but also of union representatives. The Industrial Society decided to set up a working party to consider the implications of this Bill, and that consisted of employer, trade union and independent members. It seems to me significant that they concluded that there should be an amendment to the Bill on the lines that we are now discussing.
From what I first said, I hope it will be understood that I understand, and I have some sympathy for, the feelings of trade unionists on this subject, but it seems to me that now the law is being brought into play we should not reject this Amendment. We should not leave it to another time on the grounds that discussions may be proceeding between the Government and the unions; on the grounds that an employee protection Bill is now coming into play; on the grounds that it may cause embarrassment to the T.U.C., and so on. On the contrary, it seems to me that we should amend the Bill in this way, and thus preserve a sense of justice for the individual in what I acknowledge is a very difficult area. For these reasons I should like to support the Amendment.
LORD SLATER: In view of the noble Lord's advanced knowledge regarding the trade unions in this country, and the amount of work and forms of association that he had with them in the course of negotiations from the position that he held on the side of industry, would he continue to impress on noble Lords, or express his opinion, in regard to company trade unions—trade unions that have been organised and set up by companies within this country—and also not forgetting the B.M.A.?
LORD ROCHESTER: I am not sure that I altogether follow the noble Lord's point. As I see it, we are dealing now
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not with companies but with trade unions. This is the Trade Union and Labour Relations Bill, and it was with that in mind that I took the liberty of saying what I did.
4.52 p.m.
LORD ALPORT: The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said that there were a large number of occasions on which noble Lords on this side of the House are called up from the recesses of the Palace of Westminster to vote on something, the arguments about which they have never heard and the merits of which they do not fully understand. The noble Lord, his remarks, has invited quite a different thing; he has invited those of us who are here, after having listened to the arguments, to reject this Amendment not on its merits (having heard all the merits explained to us by my noble and learned friend), but as a matter of expediency, along the same lines as the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby.
Of all the Members of this House, although I have no personal experience of the affairs of trade unions, I recognise as well as anybody else the vital importance of the Trades Union Congress and the trade union movement, and the importance of good industrial relations. However, I wonder whether, on this occasion, the advice that has been given to us on behalf of the trade unions by the noble Lords who have spoken opposite is, in fact, in the interests of the trade union movement. The trade union movement is no longer a struggling movement in this country attempting to establish itself in positions of power and influence in order to carry out its duties and responsibilities to its members; we acknowledge that it is now the most powerful organisation outside Parliament. Indeed, so far as two Governments are concerned, the trade union movement, the T.U.C., has had its way against the policies of the Government of the day.
My noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham has mentioned that the provision that is represented in this Amendment was reflected in In Place of Strife. It was also, if I am right in understanding him, a protection given in the last Industrial Relations Bill. We are now advised that this is something that we, as Parliament, should not insert in this Bill

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because it is something still to be negotiated with the trade unions. There is, however, no guarantee that the T.U.C., or the weight of opinion within the trade union movement, will necessarily accept this provision, for reasons which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, would agree were perhaps not reasonable or rational in the circumstances of this Bill, but which are based upon long-established prejudices, particularly in the context, as it was originally, of the 1971 Act. However, surely it is in the interests of the trade union movement as a whole—this powerful movement which can coerce, and has coerced, Governments in this country—that non-trade union public opinion should see that justice is done.
If the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, agrees that this is something that should be in the Bill and which, if it is left out of the Bill as a result of the pressure—as indeed it would be—of trade union influence on Parliament both in the other place and in this place, then surely a great many people (non-trade unionists, and perhaps trade unionists as well), will feel that the influence which the trade unions are able to bring to bear upon the legislature of this country is such that it can prevent reasonable measures being taken in the interest of individual people, just as it can ensure that important improvements are made in the general standards of living and employment of its members.
I would suggest to the House, and to noble Lords opposite who have long experience of the trade union movement, that they are not doing a service to that movement at the present time by allowing it to be treated by Parliament as though it were still a struggling movement, endeavouring simply to improve the conditions of life of its members both as individual unions and the movement as a whole. It is, in fact, one of the great power centres in this country, which must be in a position to ensure that the action which it takes, and the policies it puts forward, enable not only justice to be done but justice to be seen to be done, as I understand is the purpose of my noble and learned friend's Amendment.
LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELAND: I have listened to the noble Lord, Lord
1460
Alport, with the greatest interest. When he talks about the trade unions coercing Governments, my mind goes back over the past half centry when it has been the accusation of the trade union movement that it is the financiers who have influenced Governments. What is happening to-day is that the influence is swinging away. It may, on occasion, swing too far, I would not dispute that. My noble friend Lord Houghton made it quite clear that, at the end of the day. Parliament must make the decisions.
I come back to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Mary-lebone, because I remember all the arguments that he put forward when the Industrial Relations Bill was going through, and I pay him the tribute of being absolutely sincere in all the arguments he put forward, much as I disagreed with him on many occasions, and wrong as he proved to be. Let me give you one instance. When they inserted the cooling-off period into the Industrial Relations Bill it had my support. I had seen this work in different countries, and had seen two-thirds of the disputes settled with the application of the cooling-off period in the United States of America. I wanted it in: I still want it in. However, I do not see how you can get it in now because the first thing that the Conservative Government did was to apply that cooling-off period legislation in such a manner that it could not possibly work. What they have not taken into account is inertia, and what both the trade union leaders and Parliament are fighting at the moment is the inertia of workers who are determined rot to accept something. We have to find the method of overcoming that. When you had the cooling-off period their inertia overcame that.
I come back to the Industrial Disputes Tribunals to which matters of this kind would be referred. I have sat on those since the Act came into force against the advice of some of my own people, because I saw how effective they could be and how they could give effect to the general desire of this House to look after the rights of the individual, which I considered to be paramount on all occasions. The individual has these rights. They come within community rights as a matter of course, because people could not live together if they were just to live as

1461
anarchists. There have to be rules about this, but they have their individual rights, and those are what I want to see preserved.
When it comes to dealing with redundancy, with unfair dismissal, these courts have quietly gone ahead doing an excellent job. I pay tribute to them. There is usually a lawyer at the head—I am commending it, not criticising it on this occasion—who is so sympathetic to the applicants who understand nothing about the law, that it is a pleasure to see them recover the confidence which they have often lost when they sit before the court and simply state the case and allow the lawyer to tell them how the law will affect their position. Of course, they have a right to have a lawyer with them if they wish. Some have trade union officials with them. When they do, the industrial tribunal operates not only effectively but satisfactorily, even to the losers. When we have dealt with cases of unfair dismissal employers have gone out sadly disillusioned.
The reason I mention the industrial courts is because I am afraid that if we are not careful they will go the same way as the cooling-off period. Before you get them working properly, resentment of them being included in this Act, now quite unnecessarily, will destroy the effect of those courts. That is what I want to avoid.
I wish to draw the attention of the Committee to the annual conferences of trade unions which have taken place over the past few months. I will not identify them; that would be unfair, but sometimes on a very close vote decisions have been made to accept the social contract, its penalties and its reward. The great difficulty inside trade unions is not that you have annual conferences, where these matters are accepted; it is that you have the unofficial movement inside the trade union movement which causes disruption around the country. What we have to do is to find the method to deal with that situation.
People who feel aggrieved still have the right under the Common Law to have their grievances put right. I want to build something in industrial relations, so far as Parliament is concerned, that will give optimism for the next decade, not something that will give political
1462
victory for the next few months. It may well be that when the Party of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, return to power after the next Election, as he would hope, it may well have destroyed something in this Act which it would rather not have destroyed because it is a foundation on which something can be built.
It is not something that will put right overnight all the wrongs of the trades unions, employers and industrial relations world. It is the first faltering step that has been accepted by the Trades Union Congress and not disapproved by the C.B.I., although it has its own opinion on that point. Let us get it on the Statute Book. If I may be bold enough, I would say: get the General Election out of the way and return to an Industrial Relations Act that will not be destroyed by thoughtless action simply for the sake of political prestige.
LORD PARGITER: I am concerned with the technicalities rather more than the general principles. The Amendment says:
"Subject to the provision of this Section every worker shall have the right not to be—
(a) excluded from membership …"
The first question concerns the definition of a worker. Is he a person who is in work or one who might be out of work? I want that to be clear. If he is a person not within work, so far as my union is concerned—the Union of Engineering Workers, of which I have been a member for 57 years—unless he is in work he cannot be proposed for membership. Equally he has to find someone or someone has to approach him to ask him whether he wishes to join the union. If so, he has to be duly proposed. This goes through the procedure of the branch and a person who proposes another person to be a member of the union has to state that he believes him to be a fit and proper person to be a member of that union. How does the clause affect that position?
How will the worker who is not in work, but who wants to join my union, be able to do that? Can he claim he has been excluded from membership because there was no one to propose him? If he happens to be in work and none of his fellow workers are prepared to propose him, what happens then? Is he allowed to say that he has been

1463
improperly excluded from membership? Or is a person obliged to propose him for membership? What sort of compulsion is that on the individual who does not happen to be in favour of proposing another person to be a member of the union because he does not want him in and does not think he would be a good member?
This is the sort of problem that can easily arise from the clause. The question of expulsion is entirely different. We are concerned with excluding a worker from membership. First, if he is not in work, is he a worker? If he is not in work he cannot be proposed for membership of my union. If he is in work and no one is prepared to propose him in accordance with rules of the union, have the rules of the union to be altered to say that the union or some person must be compelled to nominate this person to be a member of the union? Is that the intention? If it is, I am sure that my union will not accept it for one moment.
LORD REDCLIFFE-MAUD: I wonder whether a Cross-Bencher might make a short intervention; one who is a recent Member of this House and has had no first-hand dealings with the trade union movement from either side? In listening to the debate, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, seemed to me to make an unanswerable case within the limits of his speech for doing what the amendment suggests. The noble Lord, Lord Alport, touched on the point which was in my own mind in eloquently making the case that the world outside the trade union movement would perhaps be much encouraged, as well as many members in the trade union movement, if there was this clear reassertion of the right and duty of Parliament if it failed to get the agreement of a large section of the population to do what Parliament thought right.
I must share with your Lordships my feeling that having heard Opposition speeches which were in themselves convincing, I cannot but admit that it seems to me it would be a great mistake if we did not listen to the argument that has been eloquently given by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, and the noble Lord who spoke last but one. I think the question before the Committee is: do we do better by the country if we have a Division
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and win the Amendment, which would be in one sense a triumph for principle, or would we be doing something that was not in the public interest? My own view is that the assurance which the Government have almost given us, and which I hope we shall have before the debate on this Amendment finishes, shows that they accept the principle of the Amendment. They do not think it should be in the Bill but it will be their earnest endeavour to press on with the negotiations and get the agreement of the trade union movement—not only the T.U.C. but individual unions—so that if it lies in their power they can complement what is done in this Bill by something in the next complementary Bill. As a Cross-Bencher, that seems to me the way I should like the Committee to go. I greatly hope that in the end we shall not be forced to a Division.
5.9 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: If I may, I will intervene now and say a few words on behalf of the Government. What I have to say can be relatively limited in the light of the speeches made with far greater knowledge than mine by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, who was chairman of the liaison committee between the Labour Party while in Opposition and the Trades Union Congress, and also the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Feather, who was, as we ali know, recently head of the T.U.C. To a certain extent—this is no way critical of noble Lords opposite—I very much regret that, if there is to be a Division, there were not more present to hear the case that was made by my noble friend Lord Feather.
To the noble Lord, Lord Alport, in regard to his reference to trade union influence over this Government, and in relation to the view that has just been expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, I would say that I have always regarded our society as being based upon three pillars: the Government and the organised sections of industry—the T.U.C., on the one hand, and the C.B.I., on the other. Unless those three pillars stand together, the whole edifice of our economic society, and all that goes with it, just will not stand up. I am in no way seeking to be partisan or critical, but I think that no one will deny that over the last three years things

1465
have gone disastrously wrong in the relationship of Government with one of the other two pillars. When this Government came into Office we sought to put that situation right. Whether we are right or wrong, only events will prove; but we take the view that in the new situation we should seek to consult and to seek a consensus before we embark upon legislation. That does not in any way detract from the soverignty of Parliament. Parliament can pass laws, but unless those laws are enforceable and acceptable they are of less value than the paper upon which they are written.
At the end of the day, I think that what is between the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, and the Government is really a question of timing. I looked through my brief when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, was speaking about Donovan. Of course, Donovan stressed the importance of provisions of this kind, but he did so within the context of a closed shop and its consequences. The Amendment that is now before us, of course, deals with the whole situation, and not necessarily with the closed shop. But—I come to the question of timing—is there a pressing need? The Donovan Commission thought it unlikely that abuse of power by trade unions over individuals was widespread, and I have to say this: that nothing has emerged since March, 1972, when the tribunals were first empowered to consider complaints against unions, that has shown this to be untrue. Over this period, during which some 20,000 complaints of unfair dismissal have been brought against employers, the number of complaints against unions by members, former members or applicants has been of the order of only some 200.
Until the end of 1973, 14,500 complaints of unfair dismissal had been dealt with, and, of these, over 5,600, or nearly 40 per cent., were successful. Over the same period, out of some 190 complaints against unions dealt with by the industrial tribunals, only some 30, or about 15 per cent., have been upheld. These are the statistics of the Department; and I would have thought that they would indicate that the unions are operating their rules in a statesmanlike way. From those figures—and bearing in mind
1466
what I said earlier, that one is seeking co-operation and consent—I would have thought that there was an indication that time could be given to the Government; that events are not so pressing that an Amendment of this nature is immediately required.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, who asked, "What is the Government's position?" perhaps I could read to him what my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said in another place on May 7, when speaking of this matter. He said:
"The T.U.C. has taken steps to try to ensure that proper procedures are available to trade unionists and people generally who may be affected. It has taken elaborate steps to try to ensure that rules, provisions and protections shall prevail throughout the trade union movement. This is not necessarily a satisfactory solution, and I am not saying that it is. There will still have to be discussions in preparation for dealing with this matter in the subsequent Bill, along with picketing and other matters which I have mentioned."—(OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 7/5/74, col. 231.)
My honourable friend the Minister of State went some way further on May 23, when he said that we were seeking to know whether it was possible to include certain provisions in this Bill, but that he recognised—and I hope the Committee will appreciate this—that we are confronted with very considerable difficulties. Those difficulties still exist. It is not only a question of drafting: it is a question of getting a general agreement.
It is the Government's intention to see that some provisions of this nature, if they can be agreed—and I believe they can be obtained—shall be included in the Employment Protection Bill. As I said on Second Reading and as I said earlier, this is the first stage of legislation in the trade union field. I hope that the Committee will accept that what is between us is not a question of principle or fact: it is a question of timing. I hope that the Committee will learn many of the lessons of the last three years and will accept that what we should do; if we are to have good law—law that can be implemented and which will be worked in a constructive sense by all those involved—is to ensure that it should be law that is based upon consent and agreement. It may take time, but at the end it is worth it.
BARONESSSEEAR: It seems that there are three major reasons why this Amendment cannot be accepted by the Government, although it is quite clear from the speeches that have come from the Government Benches that they accept the fundamental Tightness of the proposition contained in the Amendment before the Committee. It is said that it is an inopportune time to press for this Amendment to be included in legislation, and that it is necessary for the Government to govern on the basis of consensus. Of course it is necessary to govern on the basis of consultation, but consultation and consensus are not the same thing. To equate the two is, I think, exceedingly misleading. Consultation, Yes; but consensus only if agreement is on those things which the Government accept as being right, not those things which are forced upon them.
We have said before, and we said in the Second Reading debate, that it is extremely unsatisfactory that we are being asked to debate these most important matters in stages; that we do not know what is coming in subsequent legislation. All we can do, however, is to debate what is before the Committee, because this is indeed all that we have. It is at the heart of the Bill which is before us—and there can be no question about this—that it greatly strengthens the power of the trade union movement. If it adds great power to the trade union movement, then it behoves Parliament to ensure that minority groups are protected. I am appalled when I hear the noble Lord the Leader of the House say that offences against individuals do not matter because there are not very many of them. This was the implication.
LORD SHEPHERD: I am sure the noble Baroness wishes to be fair. She has put words into my mouth that I never uttered. What I said was: is there such a pressure of time that it would be right to include this Amendment and deny the Government the opportunity to seek this consensus through consultation?
BARONESS SEEAR: The point of the statement was that there had not been very many cases taken and therefore the implication was that there was no need for action now. Our point is that in this legislation we are greatly strengthening the power of the trade unions, and this is all the more reason why we should take
1468
strong action to protect the minority adversely affected by this increase in power. There is no question about it but that as a result of the legislation now before us certain individuals can be, and no doubt will be in due course, deprived of their livelihood or forced to take jobs contrary to their own will, and jobs they do not wish to take. The noble Lord shakes his head but that is the nature of the legislation before us. This Amendment seeks to safeguard the small number of people likely to be affected—and I know that it will be a small number. I accept that the trade unions in the main are taking proper steps to see the position of the minority protected, but there will be a residue of people who need the kind of protection that has been suggested.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Feather has said that the trade unions make provision for appeal within their own rules. Of course they do! This is right and proper; and without doubt more unions will do so and will improve their procedures. But that is not sufficient. That is an appeal inside the trade union movement and is not an appeal to an independent body. It is of the essence of appeals that, at the end of the day, they must be taken away from interested parties and put before independent bodies. This is why we urge that there should be appeals not just through trade union machinery but to outside bodies. Only in this way can that minority of people who need protection be given it.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: I will endeavour to answer the debate because I think it has been an important one and because I do not think that the Committee would wish to part with this Amendment without having considered the arguments which have been given. Let us be quite clear about what we are discussing. We are discussing the right of an individual not to be excluded from a trade union arbitrarily or unjustly by way of discrimination, or expelled from a union arbitrarily or unjustly by way of discrimination. The Government ask for time. They have had a lot of time. The Donovan Committee was unanimous—and that was nearly ten years ago—that this right ought to be given. I know the point that the noble Lord the Leader of the House was making about it being done in the context of the closed shop.

1469
I am quite sure that that is a most important context; but it is not the only context. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said on the previous Amendment that he had known cases in his practice at the Bar in which there had been unjust discrimination even under Common Law. So have I. They have not all been closed shop cases. They have been very unjust in many cases; and there are not quite so few of them as I think the noble Lord the Leader of the House seems to think.
When a person is excluded from a union or, still worse, expelled he does not only lose his means of livelihood if it is a closed shop. He may find he may lose it independently of the shop being closed. Moreover, if he is expelled he loses all his paid-up contributions and accumulated rights as a member. That may include the right to a provident fund to which he may have contributed for forty years. We are not just talking about the closed shop. As I have said, the Donovan Committee was unanimously in favour of it and so was In Place of Strife—and that was five or six years ago! The Government have had plenty of time. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, said that he was chairman of the liaison committee between the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress and he apparently hammered it hard because he was in favour of the principle of this clause. But he did not get there because they resisted him. There has been plenty of time. It is not as if people have not been trying to persuade them.
The next point is that the noble Lord does not want to leave the trade union movement with a grievance. Neither do I. But what is the grievance? We have not been told—except that they are being asked to do something that they are doing their best not to have thrust upon them. That is not a grievance; that is dragging your feet. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, is a very eloquent and persuasive speaker; but the best argument that he could put forward was that the trade unions were very much slighted that professional bodies, too, were not brought in. I have no objection in principle also to bringing them in; except that it is outside the Long Title of the Bill. But I must point out to the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, and to the trade union move-
1470
ment if they care to listen to what I have to say, that the position of the professional bodies is quite different. The professional bodies by and large—except for some of the very oldest ones, including the Church which is among the oldest—have special procedures which have to be approved by the Privy Council, that is, by the Government. That puts them on a quite different footing from that of the trade unions, which do not need approval at the moment from anybody. It means that a Prelate must go to the Privy Council—although a Measure has now been passed giving some other kind of tribunal. They have an appeal to the Privy Council as well as having a statutory body. Solicitors have an appeal from the disciplinary body to the courts. I cannot off hand give a complete list; but barristers can certainly go to the Judges. That puts them in a quite different position from the trade unions.
All that we are suggesting is that the trade union member, too, shall have an appeal to the courts; and because it is a relatively expensive business to go to the courts we thought it better to go to the industrial tribunal. I do not think that that is a bad thing in cases of this kind. They are both informal bodies and I think they are suitable bodies. There has not been much criticism of that. The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, said that one is enough. I suppose that one is enough. It is a majority in Parliament—even if that one was having dinner in Belgrave Square when the Division was called. One is enough! But we cannot impose our will on Parliament. All that we can do is to write an Amendment into the Bill which we think reasonable, and if the House of Commons does not agree with it they will send it back. We have no right to impose our will on Parliament; but when a Division is called and the result is as close as 302 to 301 it is reasonable to ask the House of Commons to think again in the light of the arguments deployed in this debate. This is what this House is for. I should think that this is a supreme example of the kind of thing which it is for.
What really worried me about the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Feather, is that he could have made it at any time in the last 150 years—even against

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Common Law rights. He does not seem to be happy about doing it. He is like St. Augustine who prayed to the Good Lord to make him chaste—but, he added, "Not now!" I am afraid that Lord Feather's prayer is of the same order as that of the Father of the Western Church. Of course it is true that the T.U.C. is doing its best to put its house in order, and also that the majority of the branches of the majority of the unions act decently and not discriminately. But this can be said about any laws that you are trying to pass. Laws are not aimed at people who behave decently but at the minority who do not.
It would be a very bold man, with a trade union with millions of members and branches all over the country, who would say that all its branches behaved decently. I think that it is very unlikely. Also, not every union is affiliated to the T.U.C. This Bill, when enacted, will apply to every kind of union, affiliated and not affiliated, trying to put its house in order and not trying to put its house in order. Communist-dominated and not Communist-dominated. So I do not think that that was a very good reason, nor was it a very good reason to say that the clause is complicated; it is not. The saving of the Common Law procedure in subsection (5) refers to a different set of rights altogether. It is not additional to the rights given in the sense that one has to do this as well as the other matters under this Clause.
I was glad off the support of the Liberal Party, both from the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, and from the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, as I was of the support of my noble friend Lord Alport. The noble Lord, Lord Douglass, I think cast his net a little wide. I do not know that this is on the same footing as the cooling-off period, for which I think I had probably less enthusiasm than he displayed, at any rate this afternoon, although I do not remember that during the debates in 1971 he was quite so enthusiastic as he sounded this afternoon. At any rate, I think that the point was a slightly different one.
LORD DOUGLASS OF CLEVELAND: For once, the noble and learned Lord may have a faulty memory.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: I should accept the noble Lord's assurance whatever it was, because we have known each other for a long time and I am quite prepared to believe that my memory is at fault in this respect and, indeed, I should welcome it if it were. However, I think that that is rather a long way from the point which we were discussing. Nor do I think that the social contract has much good to say about this. The noble Lord, Lord Pargiter, asked me what a "worker" meant. That is in the definition clause in the Bill and, presumably, unless we put a special definition clause into this clause, the expression "worker" will be covered by that definition clause. He asked me a hypothetical question as to whether anyone could be compelled under the clause to propose someone as a fit and proper person if he did not think so. The answer to that is. No.
LORD PARGITER: Could the noble and learned Lord carry that point a little further? If no one in a particular factory is prepared to propose a person as a fit and proper person, would that be regarded as discrimination?
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: I should have thought not; but 1 think that instant law is usually bad law, and I am very sales-resistant to giving legal opinions when I am on my feet. I usually like to do it at my desk in my library. However, I should have thought that the answer was, clearly not.
I was not able to follow with enthusiasm the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, because he seemed to think that, just because those concerned do not want something to happen, they are more likely to want it to happen if the Government wait another six months with negotiations the nature of which we do not know resulting in a legislative proposal which they have not yet divulged to us. They have not, I should have thought, produced a single argument that this Amendment is bad or unworkable. If it can be improved at the next stage of the package, I should be delighted; but I see no argument against it and, in those circumstances, I do not think I should be justified in withdrawing it. I therefore adhere to my proposition and beg to move.
5.36 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 8) shall be agreed to?
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Their Lordships divided: contents, 96: Not-contents, 67.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Gowrie, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Allerton, L.

Grenfell, L.

Reigate, L.

Alport, L.

Hailes, L.

Rochester, L.

Amherst, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Annan, L.

Hankey, L.

St. Davids, V.

Auckland, L.

Hanworth, V.

Salisbury, L.Bp.

Barnby, L.

Hawke, L.

Salisbury, M.

Berkeley, B.

Henley, L.

Sand ford, L.

Byers, L.

Hood, V.

Sandys, L.

Carrington, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Savile, L.

Cathcart, E.

Killearn, L.

Seear, B.

Colville of Culross, V.

Kilmany, L.

Selkirk, E.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Kilmarnock, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Cowley, E.

Lauderdale, E.

Shannon, E.

Crathorne, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Sharples, B.

Croft, L.

London, L.Bp.

Somers, L.

Daventry, V.

Long, V.

Stamp, L.

de Clifford, L.

Lyell, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Macleod of Borve, B.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Derwent, L.

Mancroft, L.

Strathspey, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Margadale, L.

Terrington, L.

Dundee, E.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Trefgarne, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Merrivale, L.

Vivian, L.

Eccles, V.

Monck, V.

Wade, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Mountevans, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Exeter, M.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Wigoder, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Northchurch, B.

Windlesham, L.

Gainford, L.

Oakshott, L.

Wise, L.

Geoffrey-Lloyd, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Wolverfon, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Perth, E.

Young, B.

Glasgow, E.

Platt, L.

Younger of Leckie, V.

Goschen, V.

Porritt, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Arwyn, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Pannell, L.

Bacon, B.

Gardiner, L.

Pargiter, L.

Balogh, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Peddie, L.

Bernstein, L.

Gore-Booth, L.

Phillips, B.

Beswick, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Birk, B.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Redcliffe-Maud, L.

Blyton, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Royle, L.

Brayley, L.

Hale, L.

Rusholme, L.

Brockway, L.

Hall, V.

Sainsbury, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Segal, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Henderson, L.

Serota, B.

Castle, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Shepherd, L.(L. Privy Seal)

Champion, L.

Hoy, L.

Shinwell, L.

Clwyd, L.

Jacques, L.

Slater, L.

Collison, L.

Leatherland, L.

Snow, L.

Crook, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe B.[Teller.]

Strabolgi, L.[Teller.]

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Summerskill, B.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Delacourt-Smith, L

Lovell Davies, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

McLeavy, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Feather, L.

Maelor, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Fiske, L.

Melchett, L.

5.44 p.m.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE moved Amendment No. 9:
After Clause 4, insert the following new clause:

"(1) The rules of every trade union and employers' association shall contain provisions in respect of the matters mentioned in the following subsections of this section.

(2) The rules must specify the name of the trade union or employers' association, the address of its principal office and the objects for which it was established.

(3) The rules must make provision as to the purposes for which, and the manner in which, any property or funds of the trade union or employers' association are authorised to be applied or invested.

(4) If any financial benefits are to be available for members of the trade union or employers' association out of its properly or funds, the rules must make provision as to the amounts of those benefits and the circumstances in which they arc to be available to members.

(5) The rules must specify the manner in which any rules of the trade union or employers' association can be made, altered or revoked.

(6) The rules must make provision for the election or appointment of officers and for the manner in which officers can be removed from office.

(7) The rules must make provision: —

(a) for the election of a governing body and for its re-election at reasonable intervals;

(b) for the manner in which members of the governing body can be removed from office.

(8) If the trade union or employers' association has officials (whether they are shop stewards, workplace representatives or other officials) who are not officers of the trade union or employers' association, the rules must make provision for their election or appointment and for the manner in which they can be removed from office.

(9) The rules must make provision as to the manner in which, for any purposes of the trade union or employers' association, elections are to be held or ballots taken, including the following: —

(a) notification of vacancies and qualification of candidates;

(b) making of nominations;

(c) canvassing or content of election addresses, where these are permitted;

(d) eligibility for voting in any such election or ballot;

(e) procedure preparatory to any election or ballot;

(f) the procedure for counting and scrutiny of the votes and ballot papers; and

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(g) the procedure for the declaration or notification of the result of any such election or ballot.

(10) The rules must specify the descriptions of persons who are eligible for membership of the trade union or employers' association or a branch or section of the trade union or employers' association and the procedure for dealing with applications for membership, including provision for appeals against decisions of the committee or other body responsible for determining such applications.

(11) The rules must specify: —

(a) the offences for which the trade union or employers' association is entitled under the rules to expel a member or take other disciplinary action, and the penalties applicable for each of those offences;

(b) the procedure for the hearing of cases in which offences against the rules are alleged; and

(c) the procedure with respect to appeals against any decision on any such hearing.

(12) The rules must prescribe a procedure for settling disputes between a member and the trade union or employers' association or an officer of the trade union or employers' association.

(13) In making provision for any hearing or a determination of any question, whether in relation to an alleged offence, an appeal or a dispute, the rules shall be so framed as not to depart from, or permit any departure from, the rules of natural justice."

The noble and learned Lord said: This is Amendment No. 9, the doctor's favourite so I hope I shall be successful. Like the last one it is a great test for the Government to face. I am glad to see that the noble and learned Lord has now resumed his place on the firing steps, so we hope to hear a salvo very soon.
The purpose of this Amendment is to ensure a number of matters upon which the unions should make some provision in their rules. When I say "the unions" I include in that wide phrase employers' associations, because this is a matter in which very likely, mutatis mutandis, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I say that the Amendment is a test of the Government's good faith for this reason: the noble and learned Lord on Second Reading was at pains to say—and he said it both persuasively and eloquently—that his object was to get through a repeal of the 1971 Act, as a sort of emergency measure, so that everything after that would go smoothly and happily and all would be as merry as the proverbial marriage bell.
He made one little mistake about that. This is repealing not the 1971 Act, but

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the 1871 Act. Ever since 1871 there have been a number of minimum requirements for trade union rules and the noble and learned Lord really cannot get away in this House with saying, as he attempted to do on Second Reading—or perhaps it was the noble Lord the Leader of the House who erred in this respect, though I am sure they are of one mind sitting together in almost connubial bliss on the Government Front Bench—that it would be a gross interference with the rights of trade unions to make these provisions. If it be a gross interference it is a gross interference which has been the law, until now, for 103 years, so it is one which they have borne with comparative equanimity. I cannot pretend that we are simply putting back the 1871 Act, but if that is what the Government prefer we might consider it at a later stage of the Bill. We thought, and in this respect we agreed with the Government, that some of the 1871 language could be brought up to date.
Moreover, we on this side did not wish to disregard the findings of the Donovan Report on this matter, as the Government appeal to him so confidently as an authority, because Donovan's Report, although not specifying in detail what the clause now says, said in paragraph 648:
"We have said that it is very desirable that trade union rule-books should be clear and unambiguous, but that they generally fell far short of a satisfactory standard in these respects."
And then they went on to spell out certain provisions. Paragraph 650 reads:
"The rules should also state who has the power to consider and decide applications for admission; that applicants refused admission should have a right of appeal to the executive committee of the union and should be so informed at the time of refusal …; and that the executive committee has the power to admit applicants where an appeal is upheld."
Paragraph 651 goes on to—
"set out the offences for which the union "—
or employers' association—
"is entitled under the rules to expel "
a member—
"… and the penalties applicable for each of those offences."
and provides that the rules must make specific provision in those respects.
The result is that we have put these provisions into our new clause, which I am afraid is rather too long to read out
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even in summary. The only extent to which we limit the absolute freedom of unions to do what they like, apart from saying that they must deal with the matters which are listed, is that in subsection (13) we simply say:
"In making provision for any hearing or a determination of any question, whether in relation to an alleged offence, an appeal or a dispute, the rules shall be so framed as not to depart from, or permit any departure from, the rules of natural justice."
Whatever else may be said about this linking new clause, I would hope that no one will say that that is an unreasonable fetter upon the union's freedom and discretion in the matter. We have dealt with it in this respect because one would think that, whatever else a new union would wish to do, it would wish to cover in its draft rules a large number of matters, and that this would provide a useful check list.
The Amendment covers the name of the union—and when I say "union", in each case I am talking equally about an employers' association—the purposes of the union; the manner in which its property or funds are authorised; the financial benefits which are available; the manner in which the rules can be made, altered or revoked; the rules must make provision for the election of a governing body, and their removal if necessary; they must make provision for the election or appointment of officials who are not officers, and for the manner in which they can be removed; the rules must make provision as to the manner in which, or the purposes for which, elections are to be held or ballots taken, including the notification of vacancies, and so on. Incidentally, a lot of people think that it would be a good thing if unions held their elections by ballot, but this Amendment does not go so far as that. It leaves them freedom to make their own decision about that matter. Whether or not that was wise on our part, that is the course which we have taken.
The Amendment then goes on to cover descriptions of persons who are eligible for membership of the union or employers' association, or the branches; the procedure for dealing with applications for membership; the offences which render a person liable to disciplinary action and the penalties applicable for the offences; the procedure for hearing cases; the procedure with respect to

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appeals; and the procedure for settling disputes between a member and the union or its officers. We do not say what view the unions should take about these several matters. We accept, for the purposes of this Amendment, that they can take their own decisions. We say only that any reputable body will make provision for them, and we consider that this is a very modest proposal. With those few words, I would only add that once again the Amendment was debated fairly exhaustively in the other place with a fairly close result. The other place divided and the votes were 303 to 304, again a majority of one, and again on the fateful evening of that dinner party in Belgrave Square. I beg to move.
LORD SHEPHERD: Since the noble and learned Lord referred to Amendment No. 9 as a medicine, and presumably he is suggesting that we should get a move on, I will intervene at this stage. I cannot help but reflect that the difference between the noble and learned Lord and this side of the House in terms of industrial relations is that, while he has moved this Amendment with care and has taken a soft approach, he keeps referring to my noble and learned friend as not being in the firing step. If that is at the back of his mind as he deals with industrial relations, perhaps we can well understand why the previous Administration, of which he was such an illustrious Member, got into so much difficulty.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: That is a metaphor borrowed from the late Sir Winston Churchill, of which he was particularly fond. I do it out of piety.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Did not Sir Winston Churchill say that one was enough for general purposes?
LORD SHEPHERD: I have to tell my noble and learned friend that if he had been present earlier no doubt he would have heard that referred to. I must say that if ever I have the misfortune to be on the Benches opposite when we have another close vote in similar circumstances in another place, I shall certainly call upon your Lordships' House to support me if I have the nerve to make a case when the merit of my argument rests upon one vote. But I must not waste
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time, and I must get on with the Amendment.
We should concede that the Opposition have gone a long way in this Amendment, compared with that which was originally placed on the Marshalled List. It is absolutely true to say that it is pure Donovan. Nevertheless, there are two reasons which I should like to put to the Committee why it should not be accepted. First of all, there has been a good deal of progress since the Donovan Commission reported in June, 1968. It is perfectly true that Donovan criticised very severely the trade union rule books as being far from clear and unambiguous, and the Commission considered that, without impairing the unions' freedom to frame rules to meet their own circumstances, the minimum requirement was for the rules of registered unions to be revised to ensure better safeguards for members. The Commission recommended new statutory requirements for rules to govern admission, discipline, disputes between union and members, and elections, including the provision for the election of shop stewards.
The initial reaction of the T.U.C.'s General Council to these and other proposals was given in an interim report, Action on Donovan, published in November, 1968. The General Council found little evidence of serious problems arising from the shortcomings of rule books, but undertook to consider the case for formulating certain basic principles for rules. Also, in November, 1968, the Council issued a questionnaire to affiliated unions about their rules on admission and discipline, the replies to which were to reveal a general absence of any right of appeal against non-admission and a tendency to scatter rules on offences and penalties throughout different parts of the rule book.
Following the publication in January, 1969, of the White Paper, In Place of Strife, which took up the Royal Commission's recommendations on rules in the context of a proposed system of compulsory registration, a special congress was held at Croydon in June, 1969, and it endorsed alternative proposals put forward by the T.U.C.'s General Council in a programme called Programme for Action. Among other matters, this programme recorded the General Council's

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intention to draw up basic principles concerning admission, discipline, expulsion and election procedure which affiliates would be expected to incorporate in their rules. The General Council further undertook to consider whether a new Congress rule would be needed to cover these matters, and whether it should define criteria for incorporation in union rules relating to the calling of strikes. It accepted the need for unions to consider how best to integrate shop stewards more effectively in the process of union government.
Within three weeks of the Croydon congress approving its policy, the General Council issued the first of three circulars setting out recommended principles for union rules. The first circular dealt with rules on admission and discipline. The second circular issued in December, 1969, covered strike procedures and the duties and responsibilities of shop stewards. The final circular in April, 1970, on the need for clear rules about determining when contributions are unpaid, was not anticipated in the Programme for Action but was apparently prompted by a High Court judgment. From that I hope the Committee will see that the T.U.C. and the affiliated unions are seeking, on a voluntary basis, to deal with this important issue which arises on this Amendment.
I accept that there is need for some provision of this sort, but I am doubtful whether at this moment the statutory approach is right as a consequence of its being so prejudiced by the 1971 Act. As I said on a previous Amendment, psychologically and emotionally, the union attitude is deeply suspicious of statutory rules and we should seek to avoid them if we can. This does not mean that, at the end of the day, Parliament needs to introduce legislation. This is the first stage in a long and complicated discussion, because of the complexity of the matter and because of the deep suspicion of a democratic society. The trade unions are in themselves democratic societies, but we need further time in these discussions and I hope that the noble and learned Lord will give us time, having satisfied himself with one blood-letting this afternoon.
6.2 p.m.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: I wonder whether the
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noble Lord has answered my arguments. He began by confessing—and I was grateful to him for his candour, which I expected—that this Amendment proposes nothing more than what he described in his own words as "pure Donovan". That is fair. I should have thought, as a small concession to reason, the Government might then have gone on to accept the Amendment, but not so. The noble Lord said that there were two reasons why not. One was progress since Donovan, which I neatly noted and marked "(a)"on my notes, but I never got as far as "(b)". I am not sure whatever became of "(b)".
LORD SHEPHERD: To refresh the noble and learned Lord's memory, I referred to it with the greatest of possible delicacy, because I did not want to ruffle noble Lords opposite. I referred to "(b)"as the general attitude towards the 1971 Act,
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: I did not realise that was "(b)". We shall deal with it in due course, all the same. We shall deal with "(a)"first. Of course I do not deny that under the influence of Donovan the Trades Union Congress has begun to put its house in order very seriously, and this is very good. Trade union rules are not by any means as bad as they were when Donovan reported that they generally fell far short of a satisfactory standard in these respects. The Government, in In Place of Strife six years ago, considered at that time that the legal requirements—which were stronger than they are now proposing, because they included the 1871 Act—relating to the rules of trade unions were inadequate and should be extended, in the interests both of the unions and of their members. I do not believe very much progress has been made about that.
I must point out to the Government that this new clause is designed to apply to employers' associations, too, and no amount of progress made by the Trades Union Congress can make me think it ought not to apply to employers' associations, because they do not usually follow the Trades Union Congress. As I said in relation to the last Amendment, this clause does not apply only to unions affiliated to the Trades Union Congress. It applies to new unions, splinter unions, any kind of small body that wants to call itself a trade union, about which the

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"top brass"of the trade unions, whether those I see now arrayed on the other side of the House or elsewhere, usually have some pretty rough words to say. So I do not think there is very much in that.
Then, going on to "(b)", as we now know its proper label, it is said that we must do it now because the trade union movement is so prejudiced against the 1971 Act. But I understood that this Bill would repeal the 1971 Act in all its works, so they cannot be prejudiced against anything in this Bill. What the noble Lord the Leader of the House meant was the 1871 Act, because we are not actually proposing that anything in the 1971 Act should be put back in this Bill by this
Amendment. I am suggesting that the 1871 Act should be reinstated and that a few modernising proposals, all of which are pure Donovan, should be added to it.
I would yield to the noble Lord's plea to have no more blood let this evening, if only he was a little more reasonable. So far he has not given any reasons, and he has only bared his breast for the next incision of the surgeon's knife which I feel I must now ask my noble friends to insert.
6.7 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 9) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents 92; Not-Contents, 64.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Glasgow, E.

Rankeillour, L.

Allerton, L.

Gore-Booth, L.

Redcliffe-Maud, L.

Alport, L.

Goschen, V.

Reigate, L.

Amherst, E.

Gowrie, E.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Hailes, L.

Rochester, L.

Auckland, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Barnby, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Berkeley, B.

Hankey, L.

St. Davids, V.

Boothby, L.

Hanworth, V.

Salisbury, M.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hawke, L.

Sandford, L.

Byers, L.

Henley, L.

Sandys, L.

Cathcart, E.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Savile, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Killearn, L.

Seear, B.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Kilmany, L.

Selkirk, E.

Cowley, E.

Kilmarnock, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Crathorne, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Sharpies, B.

Daventry, V.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Somers, L.

de Clifford, L.

Long, V.

Stamp, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Lyell, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Derwent, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Strathspey, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mancroft, L.

Terrington, L.

Dundee, E.

Margadale, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Vivian, L.

Eccles, V.

Merrivale, L.

Wade, L.

Elles, B.

Monck, V.

Ward of Witley, V.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Mountevans, L.

Wigoder, L.

Exeter, M.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Windlesham, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Northchurch, B.

Wise, L.

Gainford, L.

Oakshott, L.

Wolverton, L.

Geoffrey-Lloyd, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Young, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Platt, L.

Younger of Leckie, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Arwyn, L.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Hale, L.

Bacon, B.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Hall, V.

Balogh, L.

Douglas of Barloch, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Bernstein, L.

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Henderson, L.

Beswick, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Birk, B.

Hoy, L.

Blyton, L.

Feather, L.

Jacques, L.

Brockway, L.

Fiske, L.

Leatherland, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Gaitskell, B.

Llewelvn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller.]

Burton of Coventry, B.

Gardiner, L.

Castle, L.

Garnsworthy, L.

Lovell Davies, L.

Champion, L.

Gordon Walker, L.

Maelor, L.

Collison, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Maybray-King, L.

Crook, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Melchett, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Rusholme, L.

Summerskill, B.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Pannell, L.

Segal, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Pargiter, L.

Shepherd, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Wells-Pestell, L.

Peddie, L.

Shinwell, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Phillips, B.

Slater, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Rathcreedan, L.

Snow, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Royle, L.,

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
6.15 p.m.
BARONESS SEEAR BARONESS SEEAR moved Amendment No. 10:
After Clause 4, insert the following new clause:
"Every member of a trade union, or branch or section thereof, shall have the right, on giving reasonable notice and complying with any reasonable conditions, to terminate his membership at any time of the trade union or branch or section thereof."
The noble Baroness said: This is a brief Amendment which is in fact complementary to Amendment No. 8 which your Lordships' Committee has just passed. To put it briefly, if it is improper to prevent people from entering a union or arbitrarily to expel them, a fortiori it is still worse to lock them in against their will. That is at present an unusual practice but it does exist. There is a trade union rule that a member may not leave except with the permission of the executive council of his particular union. In order that this practice should not spread but be banned, I beg to move this Amendment.
LORD SHEPHERD: I am rather surprised that the noble Baroness has moved this Amendment because my understanding—and I see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, sitting opposite and my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor behind me at the firing step—is that the position is well covered by Common Law. The noble Baroness draws particular attention, however, to a member who, because of the rules of his union, is prevented from resignation. I understand that if there was any question of the rules being ultra vires then this would be a question, again, for the court. When a person joins a union, or for that matter any other organisation, with the full knowledge of what the rules are of the union or organisation, he enters into some form of contract—does he not?
What the noble Baroness is suggesting in this Amendment is that a person, having accepted a contract with a union
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in order to obtain all the benefits of the union, should be able as of right to say: "Despite all I may have gained as a consequence of joining the union, it now suits me and I wish to leave." I should have thought, speaking as a union member, that that was quite unacceptable. I can think of a number of organisations where equally it would still be regarded as unacceptable, particularly if the person, having exercised his right of leaving which the noble Baroness would give, would still be able to enjoy all the opportunities and privileges that the union will obtain or has obtained in the past.
I have always regarded my union membership as a form of contract with my other colleagues within the union. It is a democratic society and I should have thought that here was a case where, if there were to be changes in the rules, they should come from within and one should not seek to bring them about in a statutory, legislative form. We have always said (have we not?) about your Lordships' House that we have our own Rules; we are governed by them, and would deeply resent anyone in another place speaking there about how we should change our Rules. If our Rules are wrong, we would look to ourselves to seek to change them democratically. That is what I suggest should apply in the field of the trade union movement.
LORD BYERS: Before the noble Lord leaves that point, will he tell the Committee whether, in the case of his own union, he has the right to terminate his membership if he wishes to do so? He He talks about "enjoyment", but is not the enjoyment of something from which you cannot escape rather like the enjoyment which you get in prison?
LORD SHEPHERD: So far as my own union is concerned, yes, I have that right. Secondly, when I use the word "enjoyment", I think of all the benefits which the trade union movement has achieved for that workforce in a particular factory or a particular industry. Those are the "enjoyments" to which I am referring.

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I well remember—although I fear that noble Lords on the other side did not appreciate it—the deep sense of hostility among working folk about their strivings in order to achieve certain social advances; the feeling that there are certain sections of the community who are prepared to live off them but who are not prepared to put their own backs into achieving those results, or even better results.
LORD BYERS: With all respect to the noble Lord, I think that he is fighting the wrong battle here. We used to have that argument, but what my noble friend Lady Seear is asking the noble Lord is whether he agrees that every member of a trade union, or a branch or section thereof, shall have the right, on giving reasonable notice and complying with any reasonable conditions, to terminate his membership. We all know that things can happen; one can be in a union, association or organisation for 20 or 30 years and then something happens which makes membership of that union, association or organisation intolerable. All we are saying is that in those circumstances one ought to be in the position of being able to resign after reasonable notice. I do not think that there is any relevance in what the noble Lord has said about the strivings of the union. That is accepted; there is no hostility towards the unions. But there are cases where people find that it is intolerable to remain members, and after reasonable notice they should, in my view, be allowed to terminate their membership.
LORD SHINWELL: I am bound to say that I cannot understand what the Liberal Party are up to. It is all very well to provide absolute freedom or partial freedom for a person who is a member of a trade union, who derives all the benefits of association with that trade union and who operates on the shop floor, or in some other capacity, to decide, for some reason or another, to leave. It is very difficult to define accurately what is meant by "reasonable". All kinds of interpreations could be furnished in order to justify reasonable action. But what happens? What are the consequences? Let us suppose that a man who is a member of a trade union suddenly decides that he wants to continue to operate in a particular factory. Let us further suppose
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that although he is no longer a member of the trade union he still desires to associate himself with those with whom he was associated while he was a member of the trade union, but not to be a member of the union and not to pay his contributions, although deriving all the benefits which are provided by association with the others. If the shop floor decides "We are going on strike", is that what the Liberal Party want? Do they want to provoke more trouble?
I cannot understand their attitude in this matter. Obviously, they have not operated in a factory; they do not know what happens on the shop floor; they do not know what difficulties face shop stewards. There has been much castiga-tion of shop stewards, but the Liberal Party do not realise what are the responsibilities which are placed upon shop stewards. But here the position is as clear as it can be. Somebody who is a member of a trade union and working along with a thousand other men in a particular factory decides to leave the union for some reason or another. Therefore those who were associated with him decide to go on strike. What happens then? Is that what the Liberal Party want? That is the kind of thing which has been happening.
Advantage was taken of this by several people under the previous Act. Time and again cases were referred to the Industrial Court—some on religious grounds and others on conscientious grounds. We know how easy it is to spread "conscience"; it is very elastic-sided. It is some time since I was associated officially with the trade union movement, but many years ago I was associated with the seamen and I know what happened. If, for example, the majority of the main deck and below joined the union and paid their contributions, but somebody said, "No, I am not going to be in the union", the men would not sail and in consequence many ships were held up. Is that the kind of thing they want? It could still happen.
May I say further that we have had two Divisions this evening. I can understand many of my noble friends being aggrieved by this. I am not at all aggrieved by it. Leaving the Liberals aside for the moment and turning to the Tories, they have always been a bit stupid. I am not the

1489
only one who says that. Disraeli said it long ago, and even Churchill said it—and sometimes even the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, has said it. Shall I furnish an instance? There was an occasion when he abandoned his hereditary Peerage. Probably there were sound reasons then for abandoning his Peerage. However, it was on the occasion when the question arose about who was likely to be the next Leader of the Tory Party.
The noble and learned Lord is right to blow his nose. That is the only thing which is left to him to do. This is one of his physical acts. However, let me develcp what happened for a moment, because it is a matter of political history. Nobody was more resentful about the Tory Party than the noble and learned Lord. He denounced them with bell, book and candle. He is not the only one; and they are still being a bit stupid. I cannot imagine anything more stupid, almost on the eve of another General Election when it is very dicey about who is going to win. It may be half-a-dozen each way.
I can imagine what the militants in the trade unions are now saying: "Away with your moderation!" An atmosphere of moderation has been emerging recently. I welcome it, and I am sure that the majority of the Members of your Lordships' House welcome it, too. We want to improve industrial relations, but when it is announced in the newspapers tomorrow morning that the House of Lords have defeated the Labour Government again, what then? Do you think that they will bother about the merits of the case? The noble and learned Lord has been speaking about the merits of the case. They will not bother at all about the merits of the case. The House of Lords, they will say, is down on the Labour Government upon a matter affecting the trade unions. Therefore they are more likely to vote for the Labour Party at the next Election than otherwise.
Very well; they can carry on in this fashion, but I wish they would not. They are wrecking their own chances and also making it very difficult to improve industrial relations. Let the Opposition have their own way, but I beg the Liberals, who are a bit better than the Tories—not very much but a bit better—not to associate with the Tories either now or after the Election. Take my advice. If
1490
you carry on in this fashion you will do the Labour Party an awful lot of good. For my part, I have never voted more delightedly in those two Divisions. Why? Because the Whips told me to vote. Otherwise, I would not have cast a vote against the Tories this time. The more they vote against us in the House of Lords, the better it will be.
LORD FEATHER: I know that the object of this Amendment is to protect some person who, as the noble Lord, Lord Byers, has said, has a strong conscientious feeling about some particular aspect. Any union is prepared to allow someone to resign his membership of that union. However, the people that this Amendment seeks to protect are those people who want to resign their membership but who want to continue to have the protection of the conditions, the wages and the general atmosphere for which the union has negotiated. If I thought that somebody wanted to leave a union and wanted, as it were, to disavow all the things from which he was benefiting as a consequence of union action I would regard that man as being honourable. But I am sorry to say that most of them are not like that: they want to leave the union, but they want to get the increases and the conditions that the union has obtained for them.
I should like to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, whether she wants to encourage the philosophy of "something for nothing". I should have thought that she does not want that, and indeed I should have thought that nobody in this Committee would want to encourage the philosophy that there is something for nothing in life. There is not something for nothing; there is only something if somebody else is paying more than their fair whack. If noble Lords believe in the philosophy of something for nothing, then they should support this Amendment, but if they believe that people should accept their full responsibility in this society it seems to me the Amendment should be rejected, and I should like to see it withdrawn on those grounds.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: Perhaps I might intervene for a moment, because it seems odd that the noble and learned Lord has not uttered something. The noble Lord the Leader of the House said that this matter

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was dealt with by Common Law and from that I drew the inference that the Amendment was unnecessary. The inference I draw from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Feather, is that the Amendment is abominable, not that it is unnecessary. It cannot be both. I really think the Committee is entitled to a little legal advice from its senior legal representative. Which of them is right: the noble Lord, Lord Feather, the noble Lord the Leader of the House or the noble Baroness, Lady Seear?
I wonder how serious the noble Lord, Lord Feather, really is. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, told us that this was practically non-existent; very few unions intend to hold people against their will. Most societies allow resignations. I know that according to some tenets of some Christian bodies marriage is indissoluble, but should unions be the same as regards their membership? Are you there "till death us do part"? Are you there even if you do not want to stay any longer, and what good will come out of such a rule, and how can it be enforced? Supposing a union member says, "I am not going to be a member of this union any longer; I am not going to pay any subscriptions; I give you six months' notice"—what is the effect in law?
The noble and learned Lord is sitting there, obtaining a reputation for wisdom by his taciturnity, but I want to tempt him to his feet. The Committee is entitled to know the answer to these questions before it votes on the Amendment. What did the noble Lord the Leader of the House mean when he said that the problem was dealt with by Common Law and is it really true that such a rule, if it exists, can be enforced by any legal process whatsoever? I think the Committee is entitled to know the answer from its great expert.
LORD SHEPHERD: If I may say so, the noble and learned Lord is being very mischievous. My noble and learned friend is going to be fielded when we come to the more complex legal matters of the Bill. As I understand it as a layman, this matter is not legally complex. I understand that in the absence of any express rule about resignation it seems clear from case law that a member is
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free to leave his union if he chooses to do so. Indeed, in all probability a union would be acting ultra vires if it sought to prevent him from leaving. If the union has a rule which requires him to give so much notice of his intention, then the law requires that he gives that notice to make his resignation effective. The proposed new clause recognises that this is only fair.
However, if a union tries to adopt a rule depriving members of all freedom to resign, or at least restricting that freedom unreasonably, the courts could be expected to declare such a rule void as being against public policy. This would be the case, for example, where the rules gave the union Executive an overriding discretion to refuse resignation which the Executive proceeded to exercise in an unrealistic manner. My understanding is that that is the law as it applies to this issue. I oppose the Amendment because in one respect it is unnecessary, but also, if it were put into the Bill in its present form, it would appear to give an exaggerated right which, as my noble friend Lord Feather said, would be quite undesirable within the trade union movement.
BARONESS SEEAR: The arguments we have heard are, of course, the traditional arguments which are always produced in support of the closed shop and compulsory trade union membership. We accept that normally speaking and in most circumstances a man will belong to the union and will contribute to the union from which he gains benefits, and the objections to his leaving for exceptional reasons are covered in this Amendment, in that we say that he must give reasonable notice and must comply with any reasonable conditions. We are simply saying that, in certain places, this limitation is creeping into the rules of the union. It may or may not be true, but as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, has said, we have not had a legal ruling on this, and I am not aware that the courts have ever given a judgment on it, that it is, in fact, ultra vires for that rule to exist. If it is ultra vires, then indeed the organisations which are doing this are presumably acting unlawfully, but I do not understand that this is, in fact, established and, for that reason, I wish to press the Amendment.
6.40 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 10) shall be agreed to?
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Clause 5—[Lists of trade unions and employers' associations]:
6.47 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE THE EARL OF GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 5, line 2, after ("68(4)") insert ("or 85(3)").
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 76; Not-Contents, 68.

CONTENTS

Allerton, L.

Hailes, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Amherst, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Reigate, L.

Amherst of Hackney,

Rochester, L.

Barnby, L.

Halsbury, E.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Berkeley, B.

Hanworth, V.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hawke, L.

St. Davids, V.

Byers, L.

Henley, L.

Salisbury, M.

Colville of Culross, V

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Savile, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Killearn, L.

Seear, B. [Teller.]

Cowley, E.

Kilmany, L.

Selkirk, E.

Crathorne, L.

Kilmarnock, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Sharples, B.

Daventry, V.

Limerick, E.

Stamp, L.

Davidson, V.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, E. [Teller.]

Strathclyde, L.

Denham, L.

Long, V.

Strathspey, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lyell, L.

Terrington, L.

Dundee, E.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Trcfgarne, L.

Eccles, V.

Margadale, L.

Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, B.

Elles, B.

Merrivale, L.

Vivian, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Monck, V,

Ward of Witley, V.

Exeter, M.

Mountevans, L.

Wigoder, L.

Gainford, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Windlesham, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Northchurch, B.

Wolverton, L.

Gore-Booth, L.

Oakshott, L.

Young, B.

Goschen, V.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Younger of Leckie, V.

Gowrie, E.

Platt, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Arwyn, L.

Gardiner, L.

Pargiter, L.

Bacon, B.

Garnsworth, L.

Peddie, L.

Balogh, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Phillips, B.

Bernstein, L.

Gordon-Walker, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Beswick, L.

Hale, L.

Royle, L.

Birk, B.

Hankey, L.

Rusholme, L.

Blyton, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Brockway, L.

Henderson, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Houghton of Sovverby, L.

Segal, L.

Burton of Coventry, B

Hoy, L.

Shepherd, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Castle, L.

Jacques, L.

Shinwell, L.

Champion, L.

Leatherland, L.

Slater, L.

Clwyd, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Snow, L.

Collison, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller.]

Somers, L.

Crook, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Lovell Davies, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

McLeavy, L.

Summerskill, B.

Delacourt-Smith, L.

Maelor, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Maybray-King, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Melchett, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Feather, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Wise, L.

Fiske, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Gaitskell, B.

Pannell, L.

Wynne-Tones, L.

The noble Earl said: With the leave of the Committee, I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 11, 12 and 13 together. These are simply alternatives and their purpose is simple. All other unions and bodies which are listed, as we now do it, in Clause 5(2) will automatically go on the list to be kept by the Registrar of Friendly Societies. We feel that the special register bodies which, in the first instance, were being excluded but which

1495
are now to be included, should also have the right to go on the list automatically if they so wish. It is a question of choice.
The reason why we did not press this Amendment in Standing Committee in another place was that there was then some question as to whether the bodies concerned wanted that to happen. We felt we should not push something intended to be for the benefit of a particular group of people, unless they themselves wished it. No doubt the noble Lord has had some notes from the British Medical Association, speaking for itself and the other bodies with whom it has jointly made representations, saying it would like to go on the list automatically. Any of the Amendments Nos. 11, 12 or 13 would produce that effect and would give pleasure, I imagine, to the B.M.A. The neatest one in our view is No. 11. Speaking for myself, I do not in the least mind which of the methods is employed. I hope the Government will find it possible to accept one of them.
LORD SHEPHERD: I think we should be quite clear what is involved. If an organisation does not appear on the Registrar's list, then the question of tax relief on provident income arises. This is not a significant problem for the organisations referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie. When we discussed the Industrial Relations Act, it was very clear that those who were to be put on to the Register would be vetted. They would go through a particular "hoop". One of the basic requirements for going through that "hoop" was that the organisations were principally involved in industrial relations. Therefore, I do not think there will be any difficulty in those organisations, trade unions or employers, getting on under Clause 5(2).
But there are some organisations, and the noble Earl himself referred to them, that are not principally involved in industrial activity. They have not been vetted to that extent. They are involved in many other aspects of public life, but industrial relations is not a principal activity. This does not preclude them from appearing on the register, but it does require that they should go through the provisions of subsection (3) and satisfy the Registrar accordingly. I myself do not believe that there will be any difficulty
1496
for those organisations to go through this particular "hoop". I hope the noble Earl will agree that it is right that we should keep the two subsections quite separate. Those that have been vetted, those that are clearly involved principally in industrial relations, should go through one "hoop" and should appear under one subsection, but those which have other activities, where industrial relations are not a principal activity, should be treated separately and should appear under Clause 5(3).
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: I had, of course, hoped that the noble Lord the Leader of the House would have found it possible to accept one of these Amendments, which seem to be mild. If the Government do not accept any of them, while professing to wish to include such organisations, they will nevertheless be treating them quite differently. The noble Lord's friends in another place have intimated to us that one reason for not making changes was that some bodies might not come within the definition of a "trade union" and might not be entitled to be registered. For bodies wanting to register in the future that might be a relevant consideration. But, surely, it would be contrary to the spirit of the Amendments accepted to Clause 2 in another place. There are, therefore, practical difficulties and practical considerations which we should be thinking about, and I fear we are not. But I am most anxious to avoid the accusation by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, of not being co-operative. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD SHEPHERD: I think this might be an opportune moment to propose that we should adjourn the Committee stage, and I therefore beg to move that the House be resumed in order to take the Second Reading of the Railways Bill. I do not know how long your Lordships will require on that Second Reading. I would suggest that if it should finish earlier than eight o'clock the House should then be adjourned during pleasure, in order that those of us who have slaved so hard on this Trade Union Bill this afternoon should have the opportunity for a meal. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved, That the House do now resume.—(Lord Shepherd)
On Question, Motion agreed to and House resumed accordingly.

RAILWAYS BILL
6.55 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, the purpose of this Bill is to provide a proper system of financial support and control for the British Railways Board, so that they can continue to operate a national passenger network and maintain services essential in the public interest. There is no escaping the fact that the cost of the railways to the taxpayer is very high, and is increasing. Last year the Government paid over £170 million in cash support to British Rail, and we expect that in future they will need annual support on revenue account of the order of some £300 million. But this situation is by no means unique to this country; railways all over the world have chronic financial difficulties and to the best of my knowledge there is no large passenger railway system anywhere which is not in substantial deficit.
There have been two main attempts in recent years to put railway finances on a sound basis. In 1962, the Transport Act wrote off or suspended interest payments on most of the debt to the Government and provided for deficit grants to be paid for up to five years. The money ran out well before the end of the period, despite substantial productivity improvements achieved by way of reductions in the network and manpower. The 1968 Transport Act was the first recognition that the railways would always need some Government support. The Act therefore provided for grants for individual passenger services which were loss-making but which needed to be kept open for social reasons. It was, however, assumed by both the Railways Board and the Government that most of the system—the Inter-City services and freight—could operate commercially.
But although the railways made a small book profit for the first few years, it soon became evident that their financial position was again deteriorating. A thorough review of policy was therefore put in hand in 1972 to try to establish whether there was a viable railway network at
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all, and to identify what size and kind of network should be provided in the public interest. The main conclusio from this review was that rail passenger operations as a whole are basically unprofitable, and that the only way of significantly reducing the amount of support they need would be to cut down the scale of railway operations quite drastically and possibly to withdraw all rail services from whole areas of the country. The only alternative is to recognise, as this Bill does, that the railways are a public corporation, that is to say not a normal nationalised industry, which provides social and environmental benefits as well as giving an economic service, and that if the country needs a rail network of something like the present size it has to pay for it.
Clauses 3 and 4 are the heart of the Bill. They provide the basis for a comprehensive system of support by enabling the Government to place a general obligation on British Railways to provide passenger services and to compensate them for doing so. There is to be a limit on the total amount of grant which may be paid of £900 million initially, which may be increased to £1,500 million, if Parliament agrees by Affirmative Resolution, after which there would need to be fresh legislation.
The significant change made by Clause 3 is that the grant is to be paid for the whole network of passenger services and will no longer consist of a large number of specific grants for particular services. The 1968 Act system suffers from the disadvantage that it is very difficult to allocate the joint costs of track and signalling and other facilities to the many services which use them. Although there may be some individual services—for example, heavily-used long distance services between main centres, or commuter services—which could show a book profit, their so-called "profitability" is an arbitrary calculation which is determined largely by how these joint costs are shared out. Support for the whole passenger business also recognises that the bulk of the costs of providing and maintaining expensive, high quality track and signalling arises from the needs of passenger services. It would be possible to run a much lower cost railway for freight operations only, but that, of course, is not our situation.

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The Bill will also assist the Board through a financial reconstruction. Clause 1 reduces the Board's debt to the Secretary of State from the present £439 million to £250 million. This reflects a change in accounting procedures whereby most investment in track and signalling will in future be charged to revenue account, not capital account as at present. It also recognises that most investment of this kind is essential replacement instead of remunerative capital investment; it is therefore sensible to write it off as it occurs and to meet much of the cost through the passenger grant, rather than saddle the railways with historic and future debt charges. Expenditure on new routes of major electrification schemes, which are, of course, remunerative investment, will, however, continue to be treated as capital items, as will all rolling stock, stations and freight investment. Clause 2 increases the Board's borrowing powers to £600 million, extendable to £900 million by Affirmative Resolution. These figures include the capital debt to the Secretary of State remaining under Clause 1. But they do not represent the Board's total investment programme since, as I have said, much of that will in future be financed from revenue.
It is essential that the Government and Parliament should be given adequate control over, and opportunities to review, the expenditure of such large sums of money. Since 1972, the Government have been meeting British Rail's increasing losses through cash shortfall payments without specific statutory authority. The Bill replaces this open-ended drain with a considered régime of control and review. Clause 4 of the Bill requires the Railways Board to act on lines settled from time to time with the approval of the Government in formulating policies and plans for the general conduct of its business. It also strengthens the Secretary of States's powers to obtain information from the Board. Clause 3 enables the Secretary of State to determine the conditions under which the grant shall be paid. It is not the Government's intention in seeking this power to reduce the responsibilities of the Board and its managers. The Government cannot manage railway services directly, and have no intention of trying to do so. At the
1500
same time, we need a system which will enable the Government to influence the direction of railway policy, to monitor expenditure and to assess whether the community is getting value for money.
Before I turn to the other provisions of the Bill, the House may wish to know how the Government see the future of railway investment. The whole field of public expenditure is at present being reviewed and so specific figures for railways investment cannot be given at present. The Government accept in general the strategies put forward by British Railways last year, and will provide an appropriate level of investment to implement them, subject, of course, to the general economic situation. In practical terms, this means that we accept that the railway's network should be of roughly its present size and that passenger services should be improved with new rolling stock, including high-speed diesels and the advanced passenger train, modernised terminals and better interchanges. The Government attach particular importance to the improvement of commuter services. These are the trains that most of British Rail's customers use, and there is an urgent need to ease the lot of the long suffering commuter.
Freight services will also continue to be improved. One of the aims of the Government's policy is to encourage suitable freight to transfer from road to rail, and the Bill will assist railway freight in two ways. First, the new support sys-stem recognises that the bulk of the joint cost of the railway's system is attributable to passenger operations. The grant under Clause 3 will therefore be so structured that freight operations will have to bear only a relatively small, though fair, share of the joint costs of track signalling and administration. Secondly, Clause 8 provides for a new grant from Central Government, to assist the construction of private sidings, including associated depots, access roads and equipment, where this will encourage industry to send suitable traffic by rail. These grants will be paid where it be desirable from a local environmental point of view to get the traffic on to rail, but where this would not occur normally since it would require additional investment by industry.
There are limits to the extent to which freight can be transferred. The support for freight provided by the Bill should

1501
assist the Board to continue the considerable success it has already achieved in increasing its carryings of such commodities as coal, iron and steel and aggregates and transporting them efficiently, safely and economically.
The remaining important purpose of the Bill is to bring about a long-needed rationalisation of the arrangements for financing the Board's pension obligations. At present these have a serious effect on the railway's finances, because they have inherited inescapable pension obligations from the past which simply cannot be financed from current revenue. The Bill, therefore, provides in Clauses 5, 6 and 7 for these obligations to be funded over a period by the Board, with the help of grant from the Government, and also for grant for repayment of money invested in the railway's business by the pension funds. The Bill is concerned only with the arrangements for financing the Board's historic obligations in respect of pensions; it does not in any way affect the actual pensions which railwaymen receive. It will involve the Government in a commitment over the years to provide finance of over £1,000 million. Finally, Clause 9 enables salaries to be paid to the chairmen of transport consultative committees, as is already the position in other nationalised industries.
In all, the measures set out in the Bill will give British Railways support as never before. They result from a comprehensive review of the railway's business which showed that, if the country is to continue to have a railways system of any significant size, substantial Government support will be needed for the foreseeable future. It is now up to all concerned—management, workers and customers alike—to demonstrate in practical terms that they share the faith which the Government have shown in the long-term future of a national rail network by running it efficiently, making the most of the opportunities provided by higher investment to increase productivity, and by using the services the railways provide. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Garnsworthy.)
7.10 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has put us all in his debt by the careful and painstaking way he
1502
has moved the Second Reading. In general, the Opposition welcome the Bill as necessary, although there are one or two aspects of it which still slightly worry us. The Government, like the Opposition before them, had the findings of the British Railways Board before them which they had been asked to undertake by my right honourable friend Mr. Peyton. The first point they made was that no railway network is viable, but they added:
"Any significant reduction in size of the present system of some 11,500 miles would actually require greater financial support."
This led them to the second point that the "necessary railway" could be defined only in the context of an overall national transport policy as decided by Governments. They said that in their opinion the present size was about right.
Most noble Lords in the House to-night will probably welcome the fact that both the last and the present Government accept these premises. The Railway Board's third point sensibly was that the capacity of our under-used railway system should be exploited to the maximum. I shall return to that matter in a moment. The fourth point was that personnel on the railways are likely to decline by about 2 per cent. per year. The fifth point was that over the next nine years capital investment of some £1,787 million would be required, which is almost double the present rate of investment.
My first point is about the Board's reference to overall transport policy. As noble Lords know, had the Conservatives been returned to power, our Bill would have been accompanied by a White Paper on our overall transport strategy. This Government have already not only cut what we considered vital to the nation's economic health—that is, the 3,500 mile network of major trunk roads by the early 1980's which has been reduced to 3,100 miles—but also the standard of the roads being built has been lowered as well.
We had planned substantially higher investments in four key railway centres. We intended to achieve it by switching resources within the transport section, mainly from lesser urban roads to the railways. The Railways Board, with road, air and water transport authorities, would have all seen their place within a larger framework and therefore could have planned their long-term strategy in unison

1503
instead of having to plan as now in ignorance of the future long-term Government strategy of the overall picture.
That leads me to another point. What will be British Rail's capital investment programme now for improvements and modernisation? I know that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, said that this programme would be up to standard and so on, but I see nothing in the Bill to tell us what the Government's plans are in this respect. Yet it is on such matters as the improvement of the fast Inter-City services, with the prospect, as the noble Lord said, of high-speed diesel trains and later on advanced passenger trains, that rail popularity with the travelling public will largely depend.
The long-term investment in traffic signalling and similarly the improvement of commuter services will now, I am happy to be told by the noble Lord, be met out of revenue. 1 say I am happy because it means that they know where they are on this and that the future investment programme will be able to be met without it having to come out of capital investment monies.
To return to what is in the Bill, the figures are, 1 think we will all agree, frightening, the more so when one remembers that in the last ten years there has already been some £3,000 million of Government assistance to the railways. The £1,500 million awarded under Clause 3—I agree that this is a maximum figure—to subsidise passenger services over a period of the next five years will not, I trust, be assumed by British Rail to be a recurring exercise. I should like the noble Lord to confirm that such is not the Government's intention.
In 1972 British Rail's actual trading deficit was some £26·2 million. Last year it was £51·6 million. I would hope that with the new subsidy in five years' time they will have been able to largely stabilise this position. It is vitally important that this money should not be frittered away. There will be no one to gainsay me on that, but with the Cooper Brothers formula now scrapped I sincerely hope that the Secretary of State will use the powers in Clause 4 to make British Railways accountable to him. More Parliamentary supervision will now be necessary. It will bring us a problem: how to equate the necessary in-
1504
creased Parliamentary scrutiny against British Railways very necessary freedom of management responsibility. The trust and good will on the part of those concerned will be necessary. I was glad to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, had to say about that.
Clauses 5, 6 and 7, dealing with pension funds will be unreservedly welcomed by all in the House. I also welcome Clause 8. In this House we have continually heard how your Lordships would like to see more goods taken off the road and put on rail. If rail is to double or treble its load of freight it must make its services for freight and parcels more attractive to industry. Provision of more freight facilities is essential. With the long-term opening up of the North-East of Scotland and the likelihood of the Channel Tunnel, British Rail's freight section has a chance opening up before it which never existed before. I hope sincerely that they will seize the opportunity with both hands.
I have spoken for long enough. I have indicated that, although we greet the Bill, we do so with reservations, because although it wills many means it leaves much unsaid. Nowadays, transport has to take into account not only economics but environments and sources of energy. I suggest to your Lordships that only if the Bill is quickly followed by other information, advice and action will it be as useful as is intended.
7.19 p.m.
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords, may I presume to associate myself with the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, in welcoming the Bill and congratulating the noble Lord the Minister upon his clear, sympathetic and statesmanlike approach to these railway matters. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord differentiating the functions of the Railways Board from that of nationalised industry, and emphasising that, unlike nationalised industries and their functioning, from the financial point of view the railways were a public corporation providing environmental and social assistance to the community. Therefore we on these Benches welcome the fact that, as the noble Lord said, the attitude of the Government towards the railways is "as never before." Therefore we would support all the measures which are introduced in the Bill.

1505
We particularly welcome the noble Lord's assurance that he accepts and will be supporting a strategy of the Railways Board as put forward last year. In this connection may I presume to say that that will probably mean that the railway in North Wales—so many of us know about the Cambrian Railway—will continue to survive. We welcome his reference, of course, to improving the conditions of the commuter services. I should like to support what was said about Clause 8. We too would welcome Clause 8, in the hope that it can be effective in improving the freight arrangements of the railways, so inducing more freight to come on to the railways and away from the roads.
There is one matter which we on these Benches always find somewhat disconcerting, and something about which we are usually a little unhappy. We are always unhappy about the procedures which may be set up, and which indeed may exist, in order to deal with regional matters. We hope that, particularly in regard to the rural areas of Wales and Scotland, the voices from those areas will be heard and dealt with as sympathetically as the whole matter has been dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, this evening.
7.21 p.m.
LORD BERNSTEIN: My Lords, I am overwhelmed by the excitement of this debate. I was here about ten days ago when there were ten of us in the Chamber. I have not counted to-night, but we have less, I think, to-day, at 7.20. What is it about British Railways which makes everybody run away?
LORD LLOYD OF KILGERRAN: My Lords, I can count at least 15 in the House at the moment.
LORD BERNSTEIN: I am delighted, my Lords. It was 10 o'clock when I spoke on the previous occasion. I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has been clear in reading out the purposes of the Bill and explaining the Bill itself; but I am very surprised that while it comes from the Department of the Environment, yet not a word is said about the environment in this particular Bill. I do not know who thinks that is important. I think it is. The noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, on the other side of the House talked about "exploitation to the
1506
maximum." Is that what we want nowadays—exploitation to the maximum? I thought that was something that we did not want nowadays.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, with great respect to the noble Lord, I said exploitation of under-capacity.
LORD BERNSTEIN: My Lords, I have not really worked out the figures at all. All I know is that every successful railway organisation in Europe is nationalised. At what cost we have not been told, and I have not worked out our figures. I am not opposed to the nationalisation of British Railways: I am opposed to the people who are responsible for the running of British Railways. It is not only a question of whether a train comes in on time, but whether the people concerned are accepting to the full their responsibilities as a national organisation. I do not think they are.
In the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum they are given powers for the "general conduct of their business" subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State concerned is the Secretary of State for the Environment. It also places on him and the British Railways Board a general obligation to operate the passenger system. Should there not be powers to do more than that? Should the Secretary of State not have powers to make sure that from the national point of view British Railways us their land to better advantage? Should he not be given powers to make sure that new railway lines get the same kind of attention as new motorways do? No new motorway has been built in recent years without the permission and the co-operation of the local authorities. Under this Bill and all previous Bills British Railways can do what they like irrespective of the local authorities.
I should like the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, to tell us a few things. Will he give us a promise that no money will be spent on the Channel Tunnel railway development until the Board has received approval, publicly, from the other place? British Railways have poisoned the centres of many of the cities in this country, as I pointed out on the previous occasion, when we had a maximum audience of ten. You have only to see the railway lines and the arches on

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the Southern side of the Thames to realise that: There are nine railway arches crossing roads in Manchester City which have had no trains over them since 1960—14 years ago. Are we going to allow these British Railways people to go on doing what they have done in the past?
In Clause 4, subsection (3), it says:
"The Railways Board shall furnish the Secretary of State with such information as he may specify in writing …".
I want him to specify in writing what they are going to do when they develop the railway system, and its relationship to the local authorities through whose areas the lines are to be built. Then, in subsection(4) it says:
"…the Railways Board shall, as soon as possible after the end of each accounting year of the Board and in accordance with subsection (5) below, make to the Secretary of State a report on the exercise and performance by them of their functions during that year and on their policy and programme and the Secretary of State shall lay a copy of every such report before each House of Parliament".
I suggest they should also list the land which has been sold, the price of the land and to whom it has been sold. They should also say whether the local authorities had wished to buy such land. Will the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, give those undertakings—
LORD TAYLOR OF GRYFE: My Lords, if I may interrupt on a matter of fact in relation to the disposal of land belonging to nationalised industries, I understand that it is the practice that local authorities and Government Departments are advised of the availability of such land before it is offered on the open market.
LORD BERNSTEIN: I hope the noble Lord is right, but I can tell the noble Lord of an incident where it was not so. The Manchester City Corporation walked to the offices of the British Railways Board with a cheque made out for £2,500,000 to buy the Central Station, and they refused it. A few weeks later it was sold to a private organisation, who in turn sold it again. The full story is available in the Sunday Times.
LORD TAYLOR OF GRYFE: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again. I do not want to pursue it, but the fact I wanted to establish was a general fact
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affecting all nationalised industries. I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I think my noble friend Lord Taylor of Gryfe ought to be a little careful because of his position.
LORD TAYLOR OF GRYFE: I am sorry, my Lords, if I have offended against the practices of the House. I am a member of the British Railways Board, and I was not answering a question in relation to British Railways; I was con-finning a general principle on land belonging to nationalised industries. But I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and thank him for it.
LORD BERNSTEIN: My Lords, is the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, saying that the British Railways Board did not comply with general principles in this matter? May I continue. I should like to have that undertaking; and I should like to make one further point in connection with the Channel Tunnel. The Secretary of State, Anthony Crosland, said in the other place:
"The object of proceeding with phase two of the Channel Tunnel is to keep our options open. It does not prejudge any decision on the project beyond the present phase."
Will this Bill in any way allow the British Railways Board to continue with their ideas of a Channel Tunnel railway line without their having to go back to the other place?
7.28 p.m.
VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: My Lords, I do not want to keep your Lordships from the main subject of discussion in this House to-day, but I think all your Lordships should realise—I am sure we all do—that in bringing the Bill before Parliament the Government and British Rail are asking us to agree to an enormous burden on our total economy. The problem of transportation is always a difficult and complex one. Perhaps in some ways we in our generation, thanks to all, may have gone too fast. We have had difficulty with airlines; we have had difficulty with the railways; we never have enough money for our roads. If British Rail is to receive this enormous subvention, mainly for passenger traffic, it will necessarily be a drain on all the other resources in this country.

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Since the making of a profit year by year, which used to be the guiding principle, no longer subsists, what are the guidelines? It is very difficult to say, but the Bill takes rather an obvious course. It says that it shall be subject to the Minister, the Secretary of State or whoever is the Minister of the day, who has charge of the British Rail system. The powers of any Minister or his advisers are limited in technical matters and this places an enormous responsibility on the British Railway Board. They are not accountable for pofit. They are accountable in detail and for policy; but they are accountable to a Minister who, in the nature of things, being busy with other enormous Departments, finds it difficult to fulfil adequately. I think that we in Parliament should take a continuing interest in all Departments of State which are large spenders of public money. The kind of anomaly which occurs to me—and I am not a learned economist but I am in business—is that we subsidise the fares of season ticket holders into the City of London because the cost of the fares is not covered by the payment from the passengers, ex hypothesi what the noble Lord told me. At the same time, we limit the building of office space in the City because we do not want to overburden it. In fact we are subsidising the rent of City properties by this process. This is the difficulty which all institutions and Governments and organisations get into when the price system does not work. I am not going on to speak of the great problem which no Government in any country have solved; but we lose the guidelines.
The British Railways Board are sitting in a seat of great power. They have received their subsidy; and when the information is available, and it is generally later than sooner, they report to a Minister who lays a report before Parliament and he is also susceptible of detailed questions. I am not going to revert to the Question I asked in the House the other day but, like the noble Lord, Lord Bernstein, I have great doubts about the confidence of a board like that of British Rail to deal with all the social and environmental aspects of the problem. Since Parliament is over-burdened and local authorities to a large extent are ruled out; since it appears that such forms of inquiry as planning permission
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inquiries are no longer applicable to statutory bodies; and since environment is not people but perhaps certain stretches of the countryside, we must watch that British Rail (in their wisdom, as may be, but with their eagerness to compete with Japan and France in higher and higher speeds) do not intrude more and more on our environment by louder and louder and faster and faster trains. We must watch that by allowing British Rail to get power through Parliamentary procedures and hybrid Bills and so on which are not a popular form we are not really subsidising the destruction of our own environment.
7.35 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I shall be brief. I agree that amputation is no solution to railways; you must either subsidise or shut down; and I think that shutting down is completely impracticable. For years I have heard successive Governments talking about a co-ordinated transport policy but not one has ever emerged, and I do not think one can emerge because it is too complicated a business for the human mind to manage. I think there are one or two instances of wasteful competition. One of them is short-distance air travel against the Inter-City liner. London to Scotland is a practicable air travel proposition; but when businessmen hop on to planes to Manchester and Leeds and so on, when one knows well that they can go just as quickly by train, I do not think that they are using our best facilities. Half of them go only because it is a matter of prestige and the thing to do. Our new trains are wonderful and we must be grateful to the designers in the Southern Region for having produced at last commuter trains which are extremely comfortable and extremely good. One must beware of railway enthusiasts. I have known at least two general managers of railways who in their spare time played trains in their own house. It is the besetting vice of railway men that they get too enthusiastic. I am dubious about the tremendously high-speed trains as to whether the enormous expense can be justified. I still cannot see how they can spare the track for 120 to 130 miles an hour trains.
My Lords, the last time I spoke on this subject I spoke about land. That was on a Bill where we wrote off £400

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million of the railways' debt. I said that in return for this £400 million we should make the railways hand over to the Government their surplus land of which they then had an immense quantity. I do not know that progress has been made in disposing of it privately but they, like every landowner, think that everybody has a divine right to put office blocks on every bit of land that they own. They will sit on it until the last minute in the hope that they will be able to do so; whereas the land only too often is in the most strategic places for urban housing. One of the greatest needs of this country is more urban houses for London service personnel including their own railway-men. I repeat my plea that in return for another large write-off we, as taxpayers and general citizens, should demand the handing over of railway surplus land to be used for housing.
7.39 p.m.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, we have had an interesting and wide-ranging debate even if the Chamber has not been over full. My noble friend Lord Bernstein made reference to attendance at the last debate on the railways and to attendance this evening. I think it is generally appreciated that the Members of this House have been here in unusual numbers this afternoon and have been working very hard. In fact, they have gone to get the sustenance which those who have been responsible for the measures they have been considering greatly need. Speaking as one who is often in his seat at debates in the House between seven and eight at night, I may say that the attendance at this debate is higher than normal. Those who normally sit in as I do will appreciate the accuracy of what I am saying.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, put one or two questions to me. First, he asked why there was no Transport White Paper. Does it need repeating again and again that this Government have not been in Office very long? I think that in the five months we have been in office we have not done too badly. We have made a statement on the roads programme—and we are not the architects of the economic situation which determined our approach to these matters—and we have introduced this Railway Bill. I do not think this is a
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bad record. We want to see this Bill enacted as soon as possible so that the present ad hoc system of deficit financing can be replaced by a proper system of suport and control and we want to see that system operating from January 1 next year. To have waited for the issuing of a White Paper would not have been a good thing. It would merely have delayed this essential measure.
I am not too sure that the House was aware that a White Paper would have been issued had the previous Administration introduced a Bill. I have made some research and I must say that I can find nothing positive, but the one point I am very certain about is this: if we are to have sensible consideration of an overall transport policy, we must be very careful not to rush at it and make decisions on the basis of inadequate information. There are a number of issues which need to be settled before any Government can face up to the consideration in depth required to produce a viable overall transport policy.
My Lords, on the question of investment income, I think that, at this stage, perhaps I had better limit myself to saying that what we hope to see here is concentration on bulk night traffic and trunk haul parcels—a point which the noble Lord himself was making. We hope to see concentration on the need urgently to improve commuter services, development of inter-city passenger services of which the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, has spoken so ably, and concentration on the need to maintain and improve track and signalling to increase efficiency and safety and reduce operating costs. However, I have to say that actual investment levels have to be considered as part of the general review of current expenditure programmes, and that is bound to take some time. If it is possible as the Bill proceeds to give more information, I will do my best to do so, but I can say this: so far as inter-city passenger services are concerned, at the moment, as the noble Lord indicated, I think that this growth is welcome to the Board—and it is indeed a major growth area—and we are hoping that the services will be improved in quality and speed. We hope that highspeed trains will be introduced on The London-Bristol-South Wales line in 1976, and the Government are at present considering the Board's proposal to introduce

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them on the East coast main line. Proposals to construct four advanced passenger train prototypes are also being considered. There is a continuous programme of rolling stock and terminal modernisation. If I can be of further assistance as the Bill goes through, I will be; or, alternatively, I shall be very happy to pass on to the noble Lord such information as I can.
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Bernstein asked questions about the Channel Tunnel and I have to say, and indeed it was said in the debate in this House the other evening, that no decision has been taken about the Tunnel or the rail link to it. The two issues will have to be considered together. There is no question of the link being subsidised. If it comes, it will have to pay its way, and the link will be subject to a Private Bill and to planning procedures. In regard to the environment, I do not want to suggest that I did deal at any length with environmental questions, but I think that my noble friend suggested that I did not even use the word "environment". I think that I am correct in saying that I did make reference to the environment.
LORD BERNSTEIN: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting. My noble friend certainly did, but it is not in the Bill and we are considering the Bill.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords. I appreciate what my noble friend says about what I said and what I read and what is in the Bill, but I am making the point that I did use the word "environment", whereas I think—and I think anybody listening would have felt—that the noble Lord was implying that I had shown no regard for the environment. Let me say that I did not feel it right that I should cover ground that we covered the other evening in the debate on the Unstarred Question. I would remind the House that I then said that we should have consultations with the planning authorities, and I think that we have shown considerable regard to what the planning authorities will have to say about a possible route for a link to the Channel Tunnel.
I am sorry that my noble friend speaks as he does about mistrust of the Railways Board, because I think it will tend to create a difficult situation in that the
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Board will feel that there is soms prejudice there. But I do say to my noble friend that I will see to it that my right honourable friend's attention is drawn to what he has had to say, and I am sure that he will have some regard to my noble friend's words.
My Lords, I listened with interest as I am sure did the whole House, to what the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, had to say. I think he will not want me to cover a great deal of ground much of which—and indeed more—was covered in our debate the other evening. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, for the limited welcome he gave to the Bill and the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, for what he had to say, and I am very glad of the welcome which he gave to the Bill. I also greatly appreciated the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran.
My Lords, this country cannot afford to lose its railways. I do not think that anyone would deny that. But it is not until a railway track is torn up that people really appreciate the social or the environmental consequences. There has been a very great deal of environmental damage following destruction of railway services in parts of the land. As the Bill proceeds through Committee, I hope that we shall give it the speedy passage which I believe it deserves, for the railways need to know where they are; and so far as the railway pensioners are concerned, what is proposed in the Bill is nothing other than justice.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him whether he is aware that on November 28 last year, in another place, my right honourable friend Mr. Peyton said:
"The necessary powers to provide appropriate financial support will be taken in a Bill to be presented to Parliament shortly. This will be supported by a transport White Paper, which will underline the greater emphasis the Government are giving to railways and other forms of public transporc."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons), 28.11.73; c. 399.]
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I am grateful. I would say that I have also been reading what the noble Lord's right honourable friend said in the other place on January 16, 1974, and I could not see that he was being as specific in

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January as on the earlier occasion. I quote one sentence:
"I prefer to wait until there has been clarification of the energy problem."—[OFFICIAL REPORT (Commons), 16.1.74; c.519.]
My Lords, I do not think that anybody will say that that problem has been cleared up entirely.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CONSUMER CREDIT BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to with Amendments; the said Amendments to be printed.

CONTROL OF POLLUTION [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to with Amendments; the said Amendments to be printed.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I beg to move that the House be adjourned during pleasure until eight o'clock.
Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended at 7.50 p.m. and resumed at 8 p.m.]

TRADE UNION AND LABOUR RELATIONS BILL
House again in Committee.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE THE EARL OF GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 5, line 37, after ("association") insert ("or that its rules do not comply with the provision of this Act").
The noble Earl said: This Amendment leads us into a slight quandary. We carried an Amendment, a new Clause 2 of the Bill, and my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Maryle-bone conducted the debate on that occasion. Effectively, Amendment No. 14 is consequential, and therefore it seems to me that the most useful thing I could do is to see whether the Government agree with me on this and then return to
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it if they do not agree. I think it is very much a matter for the Government, having accepted the will of the Committee in terms of the debate on the previous Amendment, to recognise that perhaps this one, being consequential, should be accepted.
LORD SHEPHERD: We are opposed to this Amendment, just as we are opposed to the new clause dealing with union rules which has been inserted in the Bill. This Amendment seeks to turn the list into a punitive device, just like the register under the 1971 Act. Let there be no doubt about it; we were firmly opposed to that. Bearing in mind that the Committee has already agreed to the new clause about union rules, and bearing in mind that the clause would be ineffective without the Amendment to Clause 5, we do not propose to divide the Committee, but we shall seek to negative the Amendment because we are opposed to it. It may be that in that way we are registering our opposition and reserving our position, and at the same time saving the time of your Lordships.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: I do not want to be in any sense abrasive, but it seems to me that the Government have presented this in a slightly spurious manner. It happens that the Committee has carried an Amendment, the new Clause 2, which was moved with great verve by my noble and learned friend. As I said earlier, this Amendment is effectively consequential on that and I do not expect the Government to like it. They did not like the clause, but the fact is that we are considering this clause in my contention not as Opposition v. Government or as Government v. Opposition, but as a Committee committed to sanity in consequence of having carried an earlier Amendment. I beg to move.
LORD SHEPHERD: The noble Earl surely does not expect me to acquiesce to the passage of an Amendment of which I thoroughly disapprove. I said that I would seek to negative it; that I would not divide against it, but would express my opposition to it and reserve the right of the Government to deal with the issue when it goes to another place.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: I hope we are not going to have a great row about this. In

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fact, the noble Lord is saying that he recognises that this Amendment is consequential on the earlier one but that he does not want to yield on the principle of the earlier one. He recognises that this goes with it and having expressed that view he will let it go through without a Division.
LORD SHEPHERD: The noble and learned Lord knows the position. When I used the word "negative", it means that I shall object. When it is called a second time I shall remain silent. The noble and learned Lord should know the procedure of the negativing of an Amendment. It is one stage by which we can show our dissent and our objection without putting the House to the difficulty of going through the Division Lobby.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 6 to 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Acts in contemplation or furtherance of trade disputes.]:
8.7 p.m.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 9, line 9, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
"(1) An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable in tort on the ground only:

(a) that it induces another person to break a contract of employment; or

(b) that it consists in his threatening that a contract of employment (whether one to which he is a party or not) will be broken or that he will induce another person to break a contract of employment to which that other person is a party."

The noble and learned Lord said: This Amendment is a great deal more complicated than anything we have been discussing hitherto, and I am not at all sure that I can put it to the Committee both shortly and plainly, though I will seek to do so. I hope that eventually we may not only have the pleasure of seeing, but if possible even the increasingly unexpected pleasure of hearing, the noble and learned Lord who normally sits on the Woolsack addressing the Committee on this highly technical matter.
This is a matter which I should like to put in fairly simple layman's language.
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I am confining myself to the clause which I am moving, and not the more complicated new clause which follows. They are not, strictly speaking, alternatives; that is to say, both could be passed or both could be rejected—it is open to the Committee to take the view it will—depending rather on what the noble and learned Lord may tell us about the law. Assuming that this Amendment, the more modest and simply drafted of the two, were passed, it might be that after consulting my colleagues I would not feel so much disposed to press the second as well, not because it will not stand together technically but it might be that the Committee would think that I was acting reasonably in the general circumstances of the case.
In Clause 10 of the Bill we are dealing with the protection which is given—I am glad to see the noble and learned Lord; I was beginning to feel that something might have happened to him.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It would seem that progress is much faster in my absence than in my presence.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: But not nearly so pleasantly. At any rate, it enables me to go a little faster. I was saying—and perhaps I had better say it again so that the noble and learned Lord may catch up with the customary rapidity of mine—that of these two Amendments I am discussing only the first, No. 15. They are, strictly speaking, not alternatives; that is to say, I am advised that they can both live together. They are not strictly alternatives, but I was saying that is rather dependent upon what the noble and learned Lord or the Government tell us, that if we pass Amendment No. 15, I might not be disposed to move Amendment No. 16, although they can live together, for reasons which I will explain, because there is a division of principle which separates them.
When one turns to Clause 10 one is dealing with a new topic, restrictions on legal liability and on legal proceedings, and one is discussing the kind of immunity and privilege that one gives to trade union officials, to members of the public or to other people when acts are done—and I am now using the ritual words—in contemplation or furtherance of trade

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disputes. On Second Reading, when the noble and learned Lord was justifying this measure against the onslaught which I attempted to make upon it, he was disposed to say, "Well, we have to get rid of the 1971 Act and that will be one thing and then we can proceed with"—what I think he called—"our 'package', stage by stage and at greater leisure, provided we are given a chance, to perfect the law "which we have mutilated in this way. He did not use that last phrase, but that was the argument.
Amendment No. 15 restores the law so far as I can do it to its pristine condition before 1971 and, therefore, for the purposes of Amendment No. 15 I am taking the noble and learned Lord at his word. I am saying to him, "All right, you have decided to get rid of the 1971 Act. Well, get rid of the 1971 Act but do not go and under cover of that do something different, because that is not good enough; that casts doubt upon the good faith of the Government". I am using the words in inverted commas as if addressing him personally.
However, I am addressing the Committee and I would say this to the noble and learned Lord and to the Government: You said when we were seeking to introduce harmless Amendments to the law relating to admission to membership of a trade union or expulsion from a trade union, that the important thing was to get rid of the 1971 Act and all that. For the purposes of Amendment No. 15 we have taken you at your word and we expect you to keep your word and not to do something different, because that is what the Bill will do unless Amendment No. 15 is carried or, I hope, far better than carried, agreed to by the Government. We agree with you that the law as it is defined in Amendment No. 15 is not perfect, and in order to improve it we have suggested Amendment No. 16 which has a more complicated set of provisions designed to take account of improvements, partly suggested by Donovan and partly by the nature of the case. But for the purposes of this Amendment No. 15, we are saying that if you want to go back to pre-1971 then go back to pre-1971 and do as you said you were going to do, were trying to do and wanted to do. Leave the improvement of the law, as it was
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pre-1971, to a later stage in the proceedings.
If I may elaborate that with relation to this particular clause, I would do so as follows. We are dealing now with immunity for individuals in respect of acts done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. In particular, in Clause 10, we are dealing with breaches of contract; that is to say, when somebody commits or induces or threatens the commission of a breach of contract in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute, shall he be immune from legal process and effect, or shall he not? The 1906 Act, and the 1906 Act as amended I think by the 1965 Act—but I will not overburden the argument—said, "Yes, he shall be immune provided that the breach of contract involved is a breach of contract of employment". In other words, if you want to call a strike you cannot of course be sued by the mere fact that the strike is or may be on the part of some or all of the strikers a breach of contract of employment.
That is what it did. I think myself in some ways that it is unsatisfactory, but that is the situation which the noble and learned Lord has committed the Government to wanting to do as a result of this particular piece of legislation. He has said—and noble Lords on the Back Benches, perhaps not knowing what was to be decided in this Amendment, have reiterated it again and again in the debate this afternoon—"Get rid of the 1971 Act, and leave all else to subsequent perfection in the light of the social contract by Sections 2, 3, 4 or 5 of our package".
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am a little surprised that the noble and learned Lord is beginning to talk of good faith in this matter. It has never been said by the Government that they would restrict this Bill to mere reinstatement of the pre-1971 position. That has never been declared. It was stated that certain Amendments to bring the law in line with the needs of the situation would be embodied in this Bill. There is more to come in the package, but there was never any commitment to limit this stage of the operation to mere reinstatement of the pre-1971 position.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: If the copies of

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Hansard were in a handleable condition at all, which they are not, I would at this stage read a passage from the noble and learned Lord's speech in reply to my speech on Second Reading. As it is, I can only think of it. But, none the less, as I meditate upon that passage, I feel that even he, when he meditates upon it, too, will reflect that he probably went a little too far and was led away by the enthusiasm of advocacy on that particular occasion. But I do not want to take advantage of the noble and learned Lord, as I am sure he does not want to take advantage of me.
This Committee stage is being conducted in the friendliest possible way, but there can be no doubt that even this afternoon—although the noble and learned Lord has been extremely discreet in his replies, having not so far as yet opened his mouth except to intervene against me—we have heard again and again from the Benches opposite, both in the presence and in the absence of the noble and learned Lord (although I thought he might have been hiding his head under the Dispatch Box, he was in fact conducting public business elsewhere as I have subsequently ascertained) that this is a simple little Bill, just to get rid of the wicked Tories' bad work in 1971. Once that has been done, the suspicion of the trade unions will be removed, there will be a happy situation rather like the Garden of Eden with little birds twittering, everybody will be friends, there will be a social contract and no more bad industrial relations and everybody will live happily ever after.
But, no, the fact is that what the noble and learned Lord's Government or his friends are doing, is a little more complicated than that. The Act of 1906 restricted the immunity to acts done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute which were or threatened to be in breach of a contract. They limited the words by saying, "a contract of employment". These words are not limited and owing to the other phrases I in the Act, as I ventured to point out on Second Reading, what the Government are doing is allowing anybody, Renta Crowd, if you please, Renta Thug, if you prefer it, Student Demo, if you like it better, to do an act which is in contemplation of any contract provided it
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is done in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute. That trade dispute can be outside this country, for example in Chile. You will not know the merits of it. You will not know whether it is a trade dispute concerned with the conditions of employment, or whether it purports to be in furtherance of conditions of employment, or is basically a protest against the undemocratic nature of the present Chilean or any other Government.
This would be all right, I suppose, but for the fact that we are talking about breaches of contract with innocent third parties. Of course one recognises that strikes are called in breaches of contract with an employer, and sympathetic strikes are probably the same, but then they are in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute which are limited to contracts of employment and which have hitherto been limited to contracts of employment in furtherance of a trade dispute which takes place in this country. But the Labour Government in pretending to abolish the 1971 Act, and in fact doing a great deal more, are removing the limitatioins and saying "any contract at all, whether commercial or not; simply a contract of employment." It is as well for Parliament to know what it is being asked to do under cover of the repeal of the 1971 Act because it is a covert thing which is now being done.
An innocent third party may have entered into a contract for the sale or supply of goods. Upon that contract may depend the question whether he has to go into liquidation, whether he goes bankrupt, if he is not a limited company; whether he pulls down a lot of shareholders with him, if he is a limited company. Just because there is a trade dispute, the Government are now going to license not only the trade union officials concerned, but anybody, whether he is directly concerned with the dispute or has no interest in it at all except a desire to stir up trouble. Anybody is going to be allowed to break this contract, to bring pressure on third parties to break this contract, and threaten them with ruin unless they do so. That contract is one which may have no relationship to the trade dispute at all, and the trade dispute may be something which is not even a trade dispute taking place in this country but may, on the contrary, be a

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trade dispute taking place on the other side of the world.
When he was trying to defend this nonsense on Second Reading, one noble Lord, speaking for the Government (I think it was the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor) attempted to justify it by talking about multi-national companies and saying that you get these big oil companies or chemical firms that have branches in different countries. Why should you not have a sympathetic strike in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute so as to bring some kind of pressure upon them? The fact is that this Bill as it is now proposed is not limited to multi-national companies. Any kind of a trade dispute in Chile, Saudi Arabia. Israel, Greece, Germany, France or the United States of America, will do in order to enable the immunity to bite. So far from limiting it to trade union officials, as was suggested by Lord Donovan, he has let it open to the world—to Renta Crowd, Renta Student, Renta Thug. Anybody can do it in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute.
What Lord Donovan said—and I am quoting from his statements in this House and not simply from his Report—was this:
"If unoffical elements and ephemeral combinations which are here to-day and gone to-morrow are to have the same licence"—
that is to say, the same licence given to trade union officials of responsible organisations—
"then a prospect is opened out which I find alarming. Yet this is apparently what is contemplated. I find it all the more alarming because it is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Cooper, said, there are those who have a vested interest, not in industrial peace but in industrial unrest. Here we give them another opportunity for exploiting a licence they should never have."
I recognise that a return to the 1906 Act is perhaps not the ideal solution. I seek very much to look for a modus vivendi of amending the 1906 Act in an outward direction. The 1971 Act amended it in an outward direction. When we come to Amendment No. 16 we may again discuss whether or not we can do that. Whether or not I move the Amendment depends on what the noble and learned Lord says and on the fate of this Amendment.
I am taking the noble and learned Lord and his Government broadly at their
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word. They say they want to get rid of the 1971 Act. This Amendment says it will get rid of it. Go back to the 1906 position and if you have a proposition to suggest, outline or adumbrate as to how you can give effect to what we tried to do in 1971 in other words or by other means or more limited devices; the second stage of the passage can do that. But in the meantime you are trying to do what is not justifiable because of the alleged purposes of this Act; what is not justifiable on the merits of what is proposed to be effected, and what will produce the situation which Lord Donovan, upon whom so much reliance was laid in Second Reading debate, said was alarming. I beg to move.
8.28 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am greatly flattered by the encouragement that I have received from the noble and learned Lord to participate more actively in the discussions in this Committee. I am afraid that I shall take him at his word and do so for a considerable length of time from now on. Whether that will be to the benefit of the Committee or the noble and learned Lord remains to be seen. Perhaps I may say at the outset that in the opinion of the Government there is nothing sinister about what is proposed in Clause 10 and that with one or two exceptions, which do not go to the heart of the matter, the provisions in Clause 10 have a very respectable paternity indeed.
Without embarking upon the interesting matters which the noble and learned Lord has developed with his characteristic colourfulness and fancifulness in relation to contracts of employment which have implications regarding multinational companies, which will be the subject of a debate later in the course of no doubt the small or early watches of the night, let me endeavour to indicate the effects of Amendment No. 15. They will be twofold: first, to restrict the protection of Clause 10 to inducing and threatening to induce breaches of contract of employment only, and, secondly, to remove the protection for interference with the performance of any contracts.
The most important effect of the unqualified reference in Clause 10 to "contract" is that inducement for breaches of commercial contracts will also now be

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protected. That, I concede, is an important step. The Donovan Report has been cited, and, as the noble and learned Lord said recently about quotations from Winston Churchill, it has the quality of quotations from The Bible: you can always find what you want there. But in relation to this matter where Donovan has been cited, it is the case that Donovan proposed an extension of, and indeed the Industrial Relations Act of 1971 itself extended, protection for inducing breaches of employment contracts to commercial contracts. I at once take the point which has been made by the noble and learned Lord that both Donovan and the 1971 Act couple that with restricting the protection to registered unions and their authorised officials. Although the previous Government had confined the immunity in this way to registered unions, it was I think the case that they hoped—and hoped wrongly—and indeed intended, that all unions would register and thus be immune from actions for inducing breach of contract, commercial contract included. As Donovan has been cited in this connection, perhaps it is right that I should say that the recommendation on this part of the Report was by no means unanimous, and indeed a substantial minority was opposed to restricting the immunity to registered unions.
However, in the Government's view to confine the immunity to unions, whether or not registered, would mean that unofficial strike leaders could be sued by employers for inducing strikers to break their contracts. That is the great denial which the noble and learned Lord complains is involved in Clause 10. But let us face the reality of the industrial scene over the last two or three years. Experience since the 1971 Act came into force, during which time all unofficial leaders and indeed most trade unions of any consequence have been liable for inducing breaches of contract under the strict language of the 1971 Act, does not suggest that this is likely to reduce the number of strikes or to improve industrial relations. Experience has shown that the great majority of employers are just not prepared to sue trade unions or leaders, official or unofficial, and when they have done so their actions have normally only inflamed the industrial scene and done no good at all. That is why there has been massive failure and restraint in
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exercising these theoretical powers. 3ut, quite apart from this provision, which I agree is controversial, unions and union members regard this immunity as the main bulwark of their freedom to carry out their legitimate activities.
The inducement of a breach of contract other than an employment contract may occur in the context of sympathetic strikes—that is the usual field—or as a means of bringing indirect pressure on an employer during a dispute. It also arises when an attempt is made to induce a contractor to break his contract with a labour-only sub-contractor, since the contract between them is not regarded as a contract of employment. Persons who induce someone to break a contract other than a contract of employment—that is to say, for example, a commercial contract—have not been protected, even if such a contract is breached in the course of a trade dispute, unless the induced breach of commercial contract was indirect and achieved by lawful means. That was the classic position of the courts.
In this connection, some judges took the view that a breach of commercial contract indirectly induced in a trade dispute by means of induced breach of an employment contract was perfectly lawful because inducement to break employment contracts, being "not actionable" by virtue of the 1906 Act, was considered not to constitute unlawful means. For many years the courts treated with a good deal of reserve claims based on alleged liability for inducing a breach of commercial contract. For example, it was established that the defendant must act "knowingly"—that is to say, knowing of the commercial contracts. In the case of Thomson v. Deakin the Court of Appeal appeared to demand that a close knowledge of the contract broken was necessary and that unionists or other defendants were unlikely to have had the knowledge to make them liable. But in the case of Stratford v. Lindley the House of Lords considerably reduced the extent of the knowledge of the commercial contract which union officials had to have. In this case they held that in all the circumstances it was "reasonable to infer that they did know" and that there was "considerable indication that they had the knowledge". Then the case of Emerald Construction Company v. Lowthian also widened the possibility

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of liability. Here the Court of Appeal said that:
"ignorance of the precise terms of the contract is not enough … to show absence of intent to procure its breach".
All this, I submit, means that the pre-1971 law was uncertain. The Donovan Commission drew attention to that uncertainty; and uncertainty in the law in this field is obviously something to be avoided. They pointed out that a union official could thread his way through this legal maze and induce a breach of commercial contract between an employer in dispute and one or more of his customers without committing a tort by, first, advising the customer that he should reconsider his business relations with the employer in the light of the dispute, and even calling attention to the possible dangers for the customer of continuing to deal with the employer. Donovan pointed out that advice on those lines did not constitute inducement to breach of contract. And then, no tort would be committed by persuading the customers' employers to give due notice under their contracts of employment and to strike on expiry of the notice, because that would be the use of lawful means. To that extent sympathetic strikes and other forms of indirect action were regarded as perfectly legitimate under the law as it existed before 1971.
However, Donovan went on to point out that there were certain other types of action which a trade union official could lot take without risk of committing a tort. For example, he may not threaten a customer that his own employees will be called out on strike, thereby directly inducing a customer to break a commercial contract. Again, he may not persuade the customer's employees to strike without giving due notice under their contracts of employment, thereby indirectly inducing a customer to break a commercial contract; that is to use unlawful means.
The threading of this legal maze which the Donovan Report suggested was made even more difficult by the decision of the Court of Appeal in Torquay Hotels v. Cousins, where a much wider notice of "inducement" was used. In that case the area of "warning" or "advice" was narrowed and that of "inducement" widened to cover interference with the
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performance of a contract without causing a breach. This, together with the Scottish case of Square Grip Reinforcement Ltd. v. MacDonald—a good Scottish case if ever there was one—suggested that union officials might not even avoid liability by merely "advising". I apologise for trotting out these cases.
However, the conclusion of Donovan was that
"the law upon the subject ought not to be left in such a state that all persons, whether they be employees, employers or trade union officials should be so uncertain of their position";
that liability for breach of commercial contract can be incurred if the complications of the law are not appreciated; and that the law must therefore be clarified. Their recommendation was therefore to extend the protection of Section 3 of the 1906 Act, to which the noble and learned Lord has referred, to cover all contracts. It is true that only registered unions and their authorised officials could have had the protection under Donovan; but as I understand it, the Opposition Amendments would not even extend protection to them. All are to lose it—unions and everybody else.
Judicial extension of the tort of inducement, particularly in the last 20 years, to inducement and procurement of breaches of commercial contracts by direct or indirect means, and the concept of interference with the performance of contracts falling short of breach, together with the accompanying complexities relating to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the means employed by the promoters of industrial action, has put such actions at risk which were not, I submit, in contemplation in 1906. Clause 10 puts the matter into a clear and satisfactory position.
It is undoubtedly the case that some employers have objected (it has not been stated in terms but perhaps it has been stated in the florid flow of the language of the noble and learned Lord, although sometimes I miss the precise purpose of what he is saying) to the present extension of protection, on the ground that it will encourage strike action. The whole purpose of this Bill is to seek to improve industrial relations and to reduce the incidence of strike action which at the end of the day is a product of a breakdown in good industrial relations. I concede that it is possible thta sympathetic strike

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action will be made easier by the proposed change. However, the alternative to clarifying the law by extending the immunity as proposed is, in effect, to outlaw sympathetic strikes altogether, and in the Government's view that would be wrong, because it would greatly weaken the strike weapon which is a legitimate weapon when legitimately used in the hands of employees. Unions have a long tradition of relying upon the solidarity of union members working in different places, and in the view of the Government it would be wrong to attach legal penalties to the practical expression of this. Furthermore, it would be likely to have little practical effect. Indeed, the effect would probably only be to exasperate and worsen industrial relations.
As I have ventured to say, the experience of two years' operation of the Industrial Relations Act confirms the fact that employers are, and have been, reluctant to sue unions. If I may say so, all my professional experience in that field shows that, generally speaking, they have produced nothing but misfortune in terms of industrial relations for the employer. Moreover, it is well for the House to remember that even the Industrial Relations Act did not propose restrictions upon sympathetic strikes as such.
I come now to the second aspect of the impact of this Amendment if it is carried; namely, its effect upon the proposition that interference with performance of contract should also be protected. The reason for the references to interfering with the performance of a contract in Clause 10 is to make it clear that individuals are protected not only in the case of breach of a contract, but also in the case of interference with its performance without causing a breach. If the greater action—the breach—is to be protected, it would indeed seem logical that the lesser action of mere interference with performance without a breach should also be protected.
The extension of immunity in this way is necessary because of the development of potential liability in tort by the courts. Stating the law as it was generally accepted to be in 1968, the Donovan Report stated that
"mere interference [with another's business] by itself is not actionable anyway".
However, in the Court of Appeal the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning,
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the Master of the Rolls, in Torquay Hotels v. Cousins, said that
"the time has come when the principle [of inducement of breach of contract …] should be further extended to cover deliberate and direct interference with the execution of a contract without that causing any breach".
In effect, I submit that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, was propounding a new tort and I hope that I shall not be deemed impertinent if I say not for the first time—which, it should be noted, the previous Government recognised in the drafting of the 1971 Act.
The reference to interference with per-formancy of a contract in Clause 10 makes it clear that such action is protected. To return to the formulation in Section 3, limb 1 of the 1906 Act, without such an amendment, would fail to recognise the way in which the courts have since 1906 developed the tort of inducement and extended it to include prevention of performance of a contract without a breach. In my submission, the effect of Clause 10 has been to clarify the law and to bring it to a position where the developments which have taken place judicially shall be considered, and Parliament should now remedy the morass which has tended to grow by the clarication that is contained in the new clause. Whether in the light of my long discourse the same enthusiasm for hearing me again would be expressed by the noble Lord remains to be seen.
LORD HOUGHTON OF SOWERBY: May I bring the Committee back to the realities of this clause and the Amendment, because we are dealing with a very important question of human affairs and trade union action? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, said that if the Government are proposing to get rid of the 1971 Act, let them get rid of it—and no more than get rid of it—and then start afresh with new trade union legislation. However, in the speech which I made last Tuesday I explained that so far as the T.U.C. were concerned they would have been content to get rid of it and do no more for the time being. However, we discovered—and I doubt whether any noble Lord will challenge this—that it was impossible just to get rid of it. Something had to be put in its place, even for the time being. Also, I explained that when the T.U.C. found that it was impracticable to repeal

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the 1971 Act in a two-clause Bill, they took the opportunity to look at areas of uncertainty and difficulty in trade union activity which they wanted to be put right or beyond doubt in the interim.
This is one of the matters that we are discussing now in Clause 10. This was part (may I say?) of the so-called "social contract". It was not a contract; it was not even a compact; it was a clear understanding. If it is now elevated and accepted as a compact or contract, so much the better, but it was the basis of a clear understanding. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, is saying, "You have bought this contract at too high a price", let him say so, because this is part of the price. Part of the price was to remove uncertainties regarding the provisions of the 1906 Act on breach of contract of employment or inducement to breach of contract of employment.
It had been shown—and my noble friend has just explained—that, in a number of cases taken to the courts, doubt existed as to the true interpretation of the term "breach of contract of employment". If inducing workers to be in breach of contract of employment led to a breach of contract, was that lawful or was it not? Cases have been cited by my noble and learned friend which showed the doubts that existed on this point. The troublesome question was the indirect breach of contract by inducing workers to be in breach of contract of employment: was that lawful or was it not?
The Labour Government of 1970, in their industrial relations Bill—which was never debated in the House of Commons or passed into law—went no further than to make lawful inducements for breach of contract of employment in cases of "labour only" contracts. It did not go beyond that. But when we came to consider this matter in the discussions to which I referred earlier, we found that the Trades Union Congress was seriously disturbed at the effect of the 1971 Act on activities of this kind and we saw what a turmoil and chaos ensued from the attempts to apply the provisions of that Act.
The more I hear of the learned lawyers talking about strikes and what is lawful and what is not, the more I am convinced that a civilised community must get rid
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of strikes. All strikes are a breakdown in industrial relations. They are all a breakdown, on one part or another, of reasonable approaches to problems of employment and matters in dispute. I profoundly hope that the new Conciliation and Arbitration Service will be fully utilised and that it will become the authority in the land to decide questions in dispute between employer and trade union. I sincerely hope that nothing will be barred from this Conciliation and Arbitration Service—recognition disputes, disciplinary matters. I hope everything will come within it and I trust that the trade unions will have enough confidence in the creation of their own movement (because that is what it is) to resort to it to solve disputes which might otherwise lead to industrial action.
Nevertheless, we know that disputes are likely and may result in industrial action, and we have to be fairly clear about what the law is concerning them. I stress again the difficulties of enforcement of the law on mass action. We saw what happened when a union was fined. We have seen what has happened in other countries, particularly Australia, when unions have been fined or when damages have been awarded against them. It is extremely difficult to get the right balance between the law and the mass movements in the community which have now assumed such importance and power. This power is not going to be curbed by the law. This power can be curbed by public attitudes towards an attempt to get a better understanding in industrial relations, with more opportunities for solving disputes. When arbitration and conciliation are regarded as common form in industrial relations, and strikes a matter of last resort—and rare at that—then I think we shall approach some degree of civilisation in industrial relations.
For the time being, at any rate, it seemed to us who are concerned in these matters to agree with the T.U.C. that these doubts should be removed: the interpretation of the 1906 Act, Section 3; an extension of the 1965 Act, which was a Labour Act of Parliament; to consider the problems and pitfalls and chaos which resulted from the 1971 Act and to try to bring the law into a clearer state, removing these problems of the indirect

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breach of contract resulting from an inducement to be in breach of a contract of employment, and to get the position clear and plain.
I think that is what it amounts to, and in the background the whole time is the understanding between the Government and the trade unions. If the Conservative Party or the Conservative Government think they can get on with their economic policy, their social policy, their industrial policy, while being at complete loggerheads with the trade union movement, surely the experience of the last two or three years is plain evidence that they could not. Indeed the Conservative Government were destroyed because of their inability to work with the great mass trade union movement of Britain, and the Labour Party and Labour Government have had to learn from those dreadful experiences. As I said last Tuesday, the Labour Party started off after 1970 very much under the suspicion of the trade union movement, but they themselves were not really strong and pure in their attitude towards the trade union movement. They harked back to the events of 1969 and In Place of Strife and other matters related thereto. So the Labour Party, in conducting the discussions with the T.U.C. had to try to reach the firmest possible understanding that in return for making the position of the trade unions clear—or clearer than it had been—we could expect a reciprocal gesture from the trade unions when it came to the implementation of Government economic policy.
There were certain other social policies which were involved in the discussions, but I wish to bring your Lordships back to the essential condition of what this is about. If the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, says that this is a price we cannot pay, then it seems to me that what he is doing is to say that we must revert to the conditions under which his own Government were destroyed.
8.59 p.m.
LORD HANKEY: I must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, on the really monumental good sense of a tremendous amount of what he has said. I regret that I cannot go along with his conclusion, but I think there is a vast force of experience and knowledge—inner knowledge, too—of
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recent events in what the noble Lord has said.
I cannot equal the fascinating expertise of the noble and learned Lords who have discussed this most complicated question on both sides of the Committee, but like the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, I want to bring this back to the realities of the situation. The realities of the situation are that the Act of 1906 was a disaster. It has brought our country into growing contempt throughout the world, because we cannot fulfil our contracts. It does not matter which export industry or import industry one takes, we are constantly dogged by strikes, because this is the permissive society utterly run to seed. Time after time the courts have begun to put matters rights. Time after time Parliament has come back and has redefined the 1906 Act in terms of ever greater permissiveness, the last time being the 1965 Act, to which noble Lords have referred. If things go on like this, our country will continue to go downhill.
We must decide whether we are going to produce some sort of order in labour relations, or whether we shall go on with complete chaos. I was horrified when I saw the draft of Clause 10 of this Bill. I think it gives too much power to the people who want to make trouble. When I first saw it, I said to myself: "Good Lord! this and the succeeding clauses can only have been drafted by someone whose object was to extend trouble." This is not something which Parliament ought to allow. Therefore, I recommend your Lordships to give further consideration to the much more restrictive wording of the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham.
I am in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. One cannot expect to enforce good industrial relations by passing laws. I know that quite well. I agree with the noble Lord entirely that the attempt to do this just by action through the courts, and so on, has been shown to be ineffective. It has not worked in Australia; the law in British Columbia has been withdrawn. It does not work unless trade unions co-operate, as they do in Germany and Sweden. It is obvious that our trade unions are not going to be co-operative in that way. In fact, the noble Lord said so, and I agree with him. But if we pass this Amendment (which I think we ought to do) then I hope it will induce the Government to

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have another look at our industrial relations in general.
May I say once again how much I agree with the noble Lord in saying that we are much in arrears with a proper system of conciliation and arbitration, with some sort of inducement—I would not like to use the word "enforcement". If we could have some sort of inducement, if we could have better participation in industry, we would go some way to reducing the number of disputes, and with the Conservative Amendment, we would have a framework of law which I think to some degree would be discouraging to the troublemakers.
I want to say one other thing. Has it occurred to your Lordships that in practice we have to pay increases in wages to our workers to keep up with the cost of living? We cannot reduce their standard of living as we go along. They cannot take it. They cannot pay for their motorcars or their television sets, or anything of that sort. One must pay the going rate, taking account of the effects of inflation. If one carefully analyses the situation at present, one finds that the workers are on strike because they really have no alternative. There is not so much "water under the keel" as with, say, a lawyer or a doctor. They have to keep themselves alive; they go on strike, and the result is that we do what we were going to have to do anyway. What is the good of having a system whereby the productivity of our industry is reduced to a state where we lose our position in world trade because we cannot bring ourselves to pay something we will have to pay anyway after there has been a damaging strike? It does not make sense.
We ought to pass the Amendment because it is a sensible basis of law. We ought to lay much more stress on conciliation and arbitration. We should have sensible arrangements for better participation in industry, as exists on the Continent. Above all, we should have some system of inflation compensation. I know a lot of economists do not like this, but it works in some countries, though not in others. I press the Government quite strongly, although it is not relevant in this debate, properly to examine this question to see how a solution can be found, because it would rectify a situation which I agree will not be much improved by passing this Amendment.
9.5 p.m.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: I cannot look both ways at once. This is something which only more experienced politicians can achieve. Perhaps I might be allowed to comment on the various speeches which have been made. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, from the Cross-Benches for supporting my Amendment. I agree with a good deal of what he said. However, I should like to deal in more detail, although I hope not very great detail, with the two speeches from the Opposition Benches.
I was delighted that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor decided to break his self-imposed Trappist vow, and I can assure him, from this side of the Committee at least, that the more often he delights us with his learning, the happier we shall be. Undoubtedly he was doing the Committee a great service by his exposition of the legal background to this Amendment—and I do not think anyone could have done it better, or perhaps as well—but I am rather sorry, in a way, to say that I cannot resist the impression that he was really speaking to a brief, and not disclosing his innermost thoughts. I hope that next time we may have them, because they will be of great advantage to us in making up our minds.
Perhaps I may deal with what the noble and learned Lord was saying, and also in passing with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. This is not a question simply of lawyers talking about the law. I was a little disappointed that noble Lords should say: "Let us get back to reality". What we are talking about is the ruin of innocent third parties, and I do not call that a technical legal question; I call it an important social question. Those of us who are very keen on talking about social justice, as some Members of this House are, should remember that when you drive an innocent third party with no interest in a dispute—a dispute which may not even have originated or occurred in this country—into bankruptcy, or drive a limited company into liquidation, with ruin to the shareholders involved, you are not just talking about some arid technical question of law; you are talking about social justice. It is just worth while thinking a little about what you are doing when you are driving on a course

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that will have that result, and which is intended to have that result.
The purpose of this Amendment, as distinct from those which follow, is to restore the position as it was before 1971. That is what the Government say they want to do. Instead, they have done something which Lord Donovan said caused him alarm. It does, as I say, licence not trade unions or trade union officials but any persons who choose to intermingle themselves in industrial affairs, who were described with great restraint but still accurately by Lord Donovan in the passage I quoted, to do anything to ruin innocent third parties, even about foreign disputes and even if they have no interest themselves in whatever disputes they are.
The noble and learned Lord said that the 1906 Act, to which this particular Amendment would revert, had faults. Of course it had faults. But when he says the only alternative to what he proposes is to render illegal all sympathetic strikes, which he well knows this Amendment does not propose to do, I would venture, with the utmost of circumspection and the utmost of respect, and I hope with complete courtesy and Christian charity, to say that he is talking nonsense, because the fact is that the state of the law which would be achieved by this Amendment is one with which the trade unions have lived in the utmost prosperity since 1906—very nearly 70 years. Nobody has suggested that it rendered illegal sympathetic strikes, and they have not suffered very much.
When we learned from the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, that the T.U.C. would have been content to get rid of the 1971 Act, I must say he really gave me my case on this particular Amendment, because that is exactly what this Amendment was designed to do. When he went on to say, as he did with complete accuracy, that the 1970 Bill of the Labour Party—not In Place of Strife, but after they had capitulated to the Trades Union Congress—limited their immunity to labour-only contracts, which I suppose is much the same as the "Lump", although I understand the former phrase rather more easily than the second, then he gave me my case again, because it was quite clear that at that time the Labour Government, which had capitulated to the Trades Union Congress,
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actually thought that that was the right way in which to do it.
A lot of talk has been given—and I do not complain, because I invited him to do so—by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, citing the cases of Torquay Hotels v. Cousins and Stratford v. Lindley and one or two others like Emerald, which I think derived from the Emerald Isle, and may therefore have been a labour-only contract; I do not know why it should seem to be a logical conclusion to draw from that premise, but I suspect it is none the less the case. So far from creating chaos, so far from worsening labour relations, so far from doing any of the things which the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, suggested this Amendment would do, the trade unions accepted these decisions and accepted them loyally.
Although I shall not at this hour of the night go into details of the cases— and if I tried I should get them wrong— I suggest quite frankly and firmly to the noble and learned Lord, who has not so far expressed an opinion to the contrary, that whatever may be said in general about the courts, or what may be said in particular about Lord Denning, who is in fact a very enlightened and progressive judge—and the noble and learned Lord I thought rather unjustly cast a cer tain amount of criticism upon his reputation—
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am merely saying that the noble and learned Lord was creating a new tort. Sometimes judges do it, and sometimes they are discouraged in the House of Lords or by Parliament itself, because Parliament thinks that it is the place where law should be changed. I was not criticising him.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: The noble and learned Lord is an old enough practitioner to know that a judge has not the right to create a new tort; only Parliament can do that. The noble and learned Lord was saying in his usual urbane, suave and courteous manner that the Master of the Rolls was doing something that no judge has the right to do. He knows that, and nobody knows it better, and that was why I was entitled to say every word that I did. What I would have said, if I had been allowed to reach the main verb of a rather complex sentence, was that the noble and learned Lord has

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not said that those decisions were wrong. Anybody of a fair and independent mind who read those three cases of Stratford v. Lindley and Torquay Hotels v. Cousins—or at any rate two of them, and I think all three—would have come to the same conclusion that any civilised man would have come to on those facts if he had been free to do so. Therefore, to suggest that these facts justify an abomination like the present Bill, which goes back on the whole of the Government's philosophy, is to suggest what is frankly nonsense.
There is only one other thing that I would say about the noble and learned Lord's speech. We all listened to it with great pleasure and interest and, so far as I was concerned, with considerable profit. But the conclusion which I inevitably drew from his complex, but perfectly accurate, statement of the law was that I was perfectly right at the outset in proposing this Amendment by saying: by all means let this clause in this Bill be used to get rid of the 1971 Act.
Let us start from the status quo, and if some complicated new provisions are thought up by the noble and learned Lord between now and the next stage of his so-called package, well by all means we will consider them on their merits.
LORD GORE-BOOTH: Would it be in order for me to ask the noble and learned Lord a question in order to help us? Could he deal with a point made by the noble and learned Lord? To my non-legal mind it seemed to me that the facts of the situation include the legitimate trade union activity of interfering with commercial as well as employment contracts. I hope that is what the noble and learned Lord was raising in part.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: I would perfectly accept that, but I thought that I dealt with it in my opening. Obviously, my Amendment No. 17 is designed to give effect to that very argument. Therefore, I shall not try to contradict it because that is what Amendment No. 17 is about.
Where we are now is that Donovan said that if you are going to extend it to commercial contracts you must extend it only to trade unions and their officials; you must not go beyond that, because, he said, if you go beyond that you will allow RentaCrowd, RentaThug, Maoists, and what have you, troublemakers, to do things which are utterly intolerable in British society. Therefore, whereas I would be the first to admit that what I am proposing in this Amendment is the status quo, (I have other Amendments that I will put forward), so far as this is concerned it is consistent with the Government's philosophy of the Bill, which is to get rid of the 1971 Act. It creates a situation which the trade unions have lived with perfectly happily for 70 years and which, in so far as the courts have interfered with it, they have interfered with it justly and in accordance with the provisions of the 1906 Act. That is as far as I am prepared to go at this stage. In those circumstances, I would ask anybody who has been convinced by my arguments, including, I hope, my noble friends, to divide on this Amendment.
9.19 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 15) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 63; Not-Contents, 57.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Long, V.

Allerton L.

Ferrers, E.

Lyell, L.

Atholl, D.

Gladwyn, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Balerno, L.

Gore-Booth, L.

Margadale, L.

Berkeley, B.

Gowrie, E.

Monck, V.

Byers, L.

Hailes, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Cathcart, E.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Northchurch, B.

Cowley, E.

Oakshott, L.

Crathorne, L.

Hankey, L.

Pike, B.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Hanworth, V.

Rankeillour, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Henley, L.

Rochester, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.

Duncan-Sandys, L.

Kilmany, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Dundee E.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

St. Davids, V.

Elles, B.

Limerick, E

Salisbury, M.

Sandford, L.

Sempill, Ly.

Wakefield of Kendal, L.

Sandys, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Wigoder, L.

Savile, L.

Trevelyan, L.

Windlesham, L.

Seear, B.

Tweedsmuir of Bclhelvie, B.

Young, B.

Selkirk, E.

Vivian, L.

Younger of Leckie, V.

Selsdon, L.

Wade, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ardwick, L.

Gaitskell, B.

Parnell, L.

Arwyn, L.

Gardiner, L.

Pargiter, L.

Bacon, B.

Garnsworthy, L.

Peddie, L.

Bernstein, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Raglan, L.

Bessborough, E.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Rusbolme, L.

Beswick, L.

Gordon-Walker L.

Sainsbury, L.

Birk, B.

Hale, L.

Segal, L.

Blyton, L.

Halifax, E.

Shackleton, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Hall, V.

Shepherd, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Burntwood, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Shinwell, L.

Burton of Coventry, B.

Henderson, L.

Snow, L.

Castle, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Stow Hill, L.

Champion, L.

Hoy, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Collison, L.

Jacques, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Crook, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.[Teller.]

Tavlor of Mansfield, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Delacourt Smith L.

Maelor, L.

Wigg, L.

Elwyn-Jones, L. (L Chancellor.)

Melchett, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Feather, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
9.27 p.m.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE,LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE, Before I move the next Amendment, No. 16, I do not know whether the noble and learned Lord is in command of his battalions but I should like to discuss, if it may not be out of order, exactly how we are getting on. I think we are getting on quite well. This Amendment, No. 16, is one which I would be quite content, as I think I indi cated in my speech, not to move if it would help the Government. I do not think it is absolutely necessary to my case to do it. But Amendment No. 17 will yield a very considerable debate, which might result in a Division—nobody can tell. I am rather wondering whether we should be wise to go much further than this. As I say, I am quite willing to drop No. 16 if it would help the Government, but No. 17 will produce a substantial debate. Both the noble and learned Lord and I seem to be losing numbers, although the Government have kept their—
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: We are not.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: Yes, you are: do not
1542
make any mistake about that. The noble Baroness must not exaggerate her charms, great as they undoubtedly are; she must not exaggerate her powers. But I am really rather wondering whether we should be wise to embark upoun another major debate. If I may say this, although of course the Committee will make its own decisions in reliance on its own convenience, I have been working continuously since very early this morning, and I am rather wondering whether I am doing your Lordships' Committee quite the service I would be if I were a little fresher. I rather wonder whether the noble and learned Lord, who has to bear the heat and burden of the day on his side of the front, would not prefer to sing "The Last Post". He is a Welshman, and would sing it beautifully. I am just wondering whether we could not agree to start again to-morrow. I would have thought, to be quite honest, that we were doing better than bogey at the moment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Having "crossed the Rubicon" or whatever dreadful offence (apparently against the Lord Chancellor) that I have made in making the dreadful traverse, for which I apologise, I turn to the genial suggestion that we should now rise. I am afraid that there is a good deal left to be done and

1543
it is imperative that we should not risk not completing the Committee stage tomorrow. I would suggest that we finish Amendment No. 16 (if the noble Lord seeks to move it) and then Amendment 17. If I may say so, a good deal of the ground contained in Amendment 17 has already been traversed in the debate that we had on Amendment 15. We were forewarned that we should be sitting late and I would expect that we could finish Amendment No. 17 in about one hour's debate. Therefore, I think we owe it to ourselves and to the progress of Business that we should go that far.
LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE: May I resume the discussion for a moment? Naturally, I will stay up as long as the Committee would desire me to do so; but unless something new has happened since I entered the Chamber, unless some new Amendments have gone down, I do not think there is a full day's work for us to do to-morrow. I have heard some rumours that the Government have put down some controversial Amendments since I entered the Chamber. If they have not done so, I do not know what there is to discuss. I feel that the Amendment on which we are about to embark is both complex and difficult, perhaps the most complex and difficult that we have embarked on to-day. Of course, if the Government insist I can only make my suggestions; but I think that there is practically nothing after this that can take any time. There are a good many Amendments, but nothing that will take up the time of the Committee.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I was going to say that I have made the best assessment that I can and that the matters in the Bill are controversial. Since we have eminent Members of your Lordships' House who are very properly stimulated to speak and since there are several areas of potential controversy still left, I hope your Lordships will think it a reasonable course to conclude Amendment No. 17 to-night.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: I hesitate to intervene at this stage, but when I was Government Chief Whip there were
1544
many occasions when there were appeals from this side of the Committee that we should stop, although the agreement had been that we should go much further. I would then acquiese either because Members on this side of the Committee were tired or because it was felt that we could complete the work required within the allotted period. In other words, I would guarantee that we complete this Committee stage to-morrow. On that basis I hope that perhaps the noble and learned Lord would consider that we might now adjourn.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: After what the noble Earl has said, there is rather a different case before us. It is absolutely essential that, if necessary, we should sit until midnight to-morrow; but if we have a "guarantee, in so far as this can be delivered, that the Committee stage will be concluded at a reasonable hour then, of course, it makes a great deal of difference. If the noble Earl can guarantee that people will not talk too long—and this is a very tricky thing and includes the noble and learned Lord—I should be prepared to finish at this point. I had not wanted to do so because I think it of primary importance when the Chamber is absolutely full—Look at the time! Look at the House!—to carry on. The interest and the passions concerned to-night are very great and I should not like to give up the end of the debate unless I was absolutely certain that we should have a proper debate with a proper ending to-morrow.
LORD BYERS: I should like to say to the Government that I really think there is a case for taking Amendment No. 17 first thing to-morrow. I have a feeling that, in the mood of the Committee to-night, we might spend two hours on something which could be disposed of in three-quarters of an hour to-morrow. Speaking from my experience in both Houses, though nobody can give a real assurance that people will not speak too long, I should have thought that the sense of the Committee was that we should break now.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I should like to ask the noble Lord a question. Do I understand that he, too, gives an undertaking that we shall finish

1545
the Committee stage by a reasonable hour to-morrow night so far as the Liberal Benches are concerned?
LORD BYERS: I do not really think that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor should put that question to me. We have been meticulous in not wasting the time of the Committee and we have a reputation for very short speeches, very much to the point, and we shall continue to live up to that to-morrow. I do not think that we shall take up very much time.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: In view of the assurances that have been given, I am certainly not one to go into the watches of the night. I have also been employed a certain amount in the course of the night and the day and therefore I should be quite happy, in the light of the undertaking, to accept the suggestion which has been made by the noble and learned Lord.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: In fairness, I think that I must make it absolutely clear that I shall do my utmost to ensure that speeches on this side of the Committee are as brief as can reasonably be expected. I cannot take responsibility for other parts of the Committee. The only thing that I do guarantee is that we shall finish this Committee stage to-morrow. I hope that it may be at a reasonable hour and I am sure that wc shall all endeavour to achieve that objective.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: Those assurances ring with a faintly hollow tone in my brain, remembering that, when people are tired, they do not speak for quite so long as they will to-morrow when they are fresh, and I still have some doubts. But because I think that the feeling of the Committee is that we should conclude for to-night, I think I should move that the House do now resume.
House resumed.