§ House again in Committee.
§
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 1516 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 SHEPHERDWe 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 GOWRIEI 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 SHEPHERDThe 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 MARYLEBONEI hope we are not going to have a great row about this. In 1517 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 SHEPHERDThe 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 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:
§ 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. 1518 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 CHANCELLORIt would seem that progress is much faster in my absence than in my presence.
§ LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONEBut 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 1519 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 1520 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 CHANCELLORI 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 MARYLEBONEIf the copies of 1521 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 1522 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 1523 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 1524 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 CHANCELLORI 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 1525 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 1526 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 1527 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 1528 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 1529 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, 1530 the Master of the Rolls, in Torquay Hotels v. Cousins, said thatthe 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 SOWERBYMay 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 1531 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 1532 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 1533 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 HANKEYI 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 1534 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 1535 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 MARYLEBONEI 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 1537 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, 1538 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 CHANCELLORI 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 MARYLEBONEThe 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 1539 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-BOOTHWould 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 MARYLEBONEI 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.
1541| 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, 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 HASTOEWe are not.
§ LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONEYes, 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 CHANCELLORHaving "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 MARYLEBONEMay 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 CHANCELLORI 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. ALDWYNI 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 HASTOEAfter 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 BYERSI 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 CHANCELLORI 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 BYERSI 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 CHANCELLORIn 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. ALDWYNIn 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 HASTOEThose 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.