LORDS AMENDMENT IN LIEU

HL Deb 11 November 1975 vol 365 cc1691-749

In subsection (2) leave out paragraphs (a) to (d) and insert—

1. (" (a) the avoidance of improper pressure to distort or suppress news, comment or criticism;
2. (b) the application of union membership agreements to journalists including the right of journalists not to be unreasonably excluded or expelled from trade unions and to belong to the union of their choice and the right of editors to discharge their duties free from any obligation to join a trade union;
3. (c) the right of editors to commission and to publish or refuse to publish any material;
4. (d>) the assurance (subject only to editorial discretion) and access to the press of all contributors at all times.")

The Commons disagree to the Amendment numbered 3 proposed by the Lords in lieu of the Commons Amendment numbered 2 to the Lords Amendment numbered 1; and they insist on their Amendment numbered 2 for the following Reason:

Because the Amendment deals appropriately with the contents of the charter.

Lord SHEPHERD

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 3 in lieu of Commons Amendment No. 2, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 4, and doth not insist on their disagreement to the Commons Amendment No. 2. The Reason is that the Amendment deals appropriately with the contents of the charter. We may have a rather complicated procedure to undergo this afternoon in considering this matter, but since the issue is the same, the question of the Press, I wonder whether it would be for the convenience of the House if we were to discuss all the matters together.

Listening to political commentators on television and radio and reading articles in the Press, one could well imagine that this was a piece of legislation dealing with matters of direct consequence to the Press and the media. But this is a Bill about industrial relations. Its primary object, if not its sole object, is to repeal the remaining parts of the Industrial Relations Act 1971, and I suspect that there will be few who are sorry about its complete repeal. The repeal was an essential part of the Labour Party Manifestos in the two Elections in 1974. All the contents of the Bill have been approved, somewhat reluctantly I admit, with the exception of this one remaining clause dealing with the freedom of the Press. Noble Lords opposite have agreed to measures making a closed shop agreement lawful, as it was prior to 1971, but say that for special, perhaps remote. reasons special provisions should be included for the Press.

If I may say so, I do not believe that Mrs. Thatcher's intervention on Friday was entirely helpful regarding the claim of the independence of your Lordships' House within Parliament as a whole. Perhaps I might ask some noble Lord opposite to remind the right honourable lady that Czechoslovakia lost its independence in 1938 not through the failure of the Press or the journalists, but because the democracies did not feel it opportune to fulfil their treaty obligations to that country in its moment of dire trouble. The right honourable lady said: It is not that we doubt the good faith of the overwhelming majority of journalists. The case made by the Opposition in another place was that there was no immediate danger, but one had to guard against a remote possibility that because of a closed shop for journalists the freedom of the Press could be imperilled. I repeat, "a remote possibility".

The position of the Government has been made clear by words and deeds, with their determination to maintain the independence of the Press and the media. This is an essential factor to democratic Government in a free society. But this Bill, as I have said before, is a general approach to industrial relations. We do not think that it is right to select one group of workers for special provision; that a principle for industry generally should be withheld from one group of workers, or from one industry.

On the belief that putting the law back to what it was prior to 1971 creates a threat to the independence of the Press, I can only say that the real threat to the Press, and to its service to our democratic society, is not the activities of journalists but the very structure and the financial weakness of many, if not all, of our newspapers. We have said that we would act if there was a threat to the independence of the Press. Such legislation would i require most careful consideration, and I suspect that it would be more substantial in detail than the Amendments moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, which, in my view, are obscure and ill-defined. As drafted, these Amendments could cause grave consequences to the Press, and their very presence might cause reactions which, in the interests of the Press, we should seek to avoid.

I have no doubt that the freedom of the Press depends on a large number of papers, national and local, and, apart from economic viability, freedom depends on the determination of all within the industry to ensure its independence. In my view owners and editors, if embattled by hostile journalists, even supported by the law, could not ensure that freedom. Let us remember—and most forget—that, apart from the journalists, there was a right to closed shop agreements on the production side of this industry for many years prior to 1971. One did not hear then, and certainly one did not hear when we were discussing the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act in 1974, of a possible threat to the freedom of the Press. In fact, in regard to the production side, owners and editors many years ago positively encouraged closed shop agreements.

There are three sets of Amendments before us and the Government see objections to all of them. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor explained these when the House considered them last. These Amendments have been rejected by another place, and I will briefly explain to the House why I ask your Lordships not to press them further. There is the group of Amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, which sets out in great detail what, in his view, should be included in the charter. As a consequence of an Amendment made in another place, at least three of those provisions have been included in a Government Amendment. However, we believe that whatever may be the merits of the rights that should be put into the charter, these are matters which should be freely negotiated by industry, which brings me back to a principle which I have mentioned; namely, that if this charter is to have any value at all, it must be freely entered into and, as a consequence of that, an obligation is placed on all sides to comply with it.

I come to Amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 11, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone. These would build on the Government's own proposals for a supervisory body which could hear complaints of breaches of the charter, and issue and publish declarations. They would also enable that body to award compensation for financial loss, and would give to its decisions, declarations and awards the legal effect of decisions, declarations and awards of the High Court. And noble Lords should take note that there is no right of appeal at all in regard to the decisions of this supervisory board. The noble and learned Lord seems to me to be making two mistakes. First, he assumes that without the force of the law nothing will happen as a consequence of the supervisory board and, secondly, he assumes that what ought to happen is that the plaintiffs should be able to pursue a claim for financial compensation.

On the first point, the Government propose a body to which all concerned in the Press will look as the guardian of the charter which they themselves will have drawn up. Their own involvement is what will ensure that the results are not ignored, and if some particular interest wishes to ignore the results in a certain case, then I suggest we have seen enough of this subject to know that public and Parliamentary attention will not overlook it. On the second point, it is argued that what the body does to supervise the work of the charter will not be affected by the addition of compensation where the body finds that there is a breach of the charter. The Government believe, and our experience of the impact of the law in industrial relations indicates, not that this provision will interfere directly with the supervisory body, but that the nature of that body, its procedures and attitudes to cases will change. Its primary aim should be to provide a forum and focus for conciliation in those matters which adversely affect the freedom of the Press, and not to act as a court for those seeking compensation.

Apart from these general considerations, we believe that this Amendment has particular and serious defects. I recognise that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, concentrated on compensation partly because he thought it would be less far-reaching than some other courses, although I shall explain shortly that the Amendment has very wide implications which I do not think he foresaw. No amount of compensation will safeguard the freedom of the Press. What we want to do is to prevent breaches in that freedom, not to ensure that they are paid for, and employers will pay to avoid trouble. Nothing is clearer on that than our lessons over the Industrial Relations Act.

I turn to another defect. The noble and learned Lord seemed to imply that his Amendment would operate only in cases where an individual had lost his livelihood or had suffered damage or had suffered materially in his pocket, but his Amendment goes much wider than that. Employers and others could sue, as well as an individual who had lost his job or who had an article commissioned but not published.

I ask your Lordships to suppose that there was a complicated dispute, essentially about something else— overtime conditions, perhaps—which led to action involving a breach of the charter (and I remind your Lordships that we do not yet know for certain what that charter will contain) and that there was a loss of production. Suppose, also, that the action taken did not have the support of the trade union concerned; indeed, that the trade union, as soon as it learned of the situation, did all it could to resolve the problem and did so quickly. I must remind the House that these are cases where the freedom of the Press has previously been thought to be threatened, and that they have generally had these two characteristics. They took place in the context of an industrial dispute about another issue, and they were often not supported by the union officially. The noble and learned Lord's Amendment could lead to a case where there might be substantial compensation to the employer for loss of production, perhaps even for a drop in circulation thereafter; he might have to be paid by the union, by a union official or by an individual employee, and this inevitable obscurity hardly makes the effect more acceptable.

This is an issue of such importance that I will give yet another illustration. Let us suppose that the charter adopts the rights already spelt out in the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in subsection (2); the NUJ instructs its members to withdraw their labour in support of a pay claim—a tactic considered legitimate in every other industry —and, as a result, a newspaper cannot appear. The proprietor may have a consequential case against the union, if it is held that the strike action amounted to improper pressure to suppress news. An advertiser might have a claim to compensation, and so, for that matter, might any other contributor, because they had been denied access at the relevant time. An editor might have a case in that he had been unable to exercise his right to publish.

The sums of compensation involved to all the parties potentially aggrieved by anything other than legitimate strike action could be absolutely enormous. A union or an individual union member might be unable to pay; the aggrieved parties could go to court to enforce payment, with the possibility, at the end of the road, that the union's funds and resources were sequestrated. That is a fact; it is not in any way precluded by any of the Amendments before this House. I have indicated some of the particular effects that this Amendment could have. The short point is that it would take us right back to all the sorry experiences of the Industrial Relations Act, and I have to tell your Lordships' House that we are not prepared to accept that position.

Turning to the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, in my view that has received too little attention by your Lordships, with the notable exception of my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman has been extremely coy about it. He has been most forward in explaining why something needs to be done, but rather backward in telling the House why the Amendment could be helpful. He seems to think—and I would not wish in any way to be offensive, because we have been sitting with him for a number of hours in the past few days—that he is to be congratulated on his Amendment because of its ambiguity, because it is obscure. Moreover, he seems to think —and I have in mind his remarks of 3rd November at column 927—that ambiguity and obscurity in drafting will discourage litigation. I should have thought that it ill-behoves this House, which rightly prides itself on its role as a revising Chamber, deliberately to insert ambiguities and obscurities in the law. Moreover, since when have ambiguities and obscurities reduced the likelihood of litigation? Surely the experience of solicitors points to the opposite conclusion.

I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has really worked out what he is seeking to do. He has described his Amendment as mild and moderate. Apparently it reasserts Common Law rights such as they exist. This is, of course, not particularly helpful. If a Common Law right exists at the moment—such as the right to go to court to complain of a breach of contract—there is no need to repeat it. If the right exists at present, not only will the Bill not take it away, but it will add to it by requiring the charter to be taken into account in any of its proceedings. There is a great deal of confusion in this matter. It declaring the charter to be public policy meant that the courts merely had to take it into account when deciding cases, the provision would be pointless. The Government's proposals go that far. I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, must intend some new cases to be taken to the courts, and it is the Government's belief that that is what is intended and that that would be the effect.

Moreover, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, said, public policy is a difficult horse to ride. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor confirmed that view, particularly when taken in conjunction with the charter, the contents of which we are unaware. May I give an example of the difficulties that we foresee in regard to the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman? Let us suppose that the proprietors and the NUJ reach an agreement, as they have done in the past, limiting the use of non-journalists to report on sports events. In consequence a contributor might find that he is able to get only a certain amount of material published and he may feel that the rights of access, apparently guaranteed to him by the charter, are infringed. He may consider that his case—his chance of some income on the side and of establishing his name as a sports correspondent—suffers.

A possible consequence of the Amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman—I must admit that we cannot be sure about this; but neither can we with certainty discount the possibility—is that, because the agreement between the proprietors and the NUJ will be rendered void as contrary to public policy, a contributor could take the proprietor and the NUJ to court, on the grounds that a void agreement which was contrary to public policy was being used against him and was damaging his interests by restricting the contributions he could make. Not only would this be a new development of Common Law, but there could possibly be many unforeseen complications and ramifications. It would also be a fairly sizeable interference with collective bargaining between proprietors and journalists, about matters affecting terms and conditions of employment, and a sizeable interference with a legitimate aim of any union to negotiate agreements to safeguard the position of its members.

My Lords, we have repealed legislation which sought to outlaw the closed shop. It is the Government's hope and expectation that the charter will lay down guidance on the application of union membership agreements to journalism in a way which will avoid any threat to Press freedom. Earlier Amendments made to this Bill meant that they could be drawn up in a flexible manner designed to take account of the circumstances of the newspaper in question. I cannot think that the right to resolve problems relating to the closed shop should enable the courts to restrain an action in pursuance of agreements relating to them, if such agreements are contrary to the charter. The unions concerned will be party to the charter, and if there are problems at a local level surely it is better for the unions, rather than the courts, to resolve them.

There really is considerable uncertainty about the effect of this Amendment, even in the form originally proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. We would be leaving the matter very much in the hands of the parties who would be responsible for the charter, and the courts would be given very little guidance on what they could do about it. Clearly, in these circumstances agreements could be declared void. But precisely how much further they could go is very uncertain. Moreover, what kind of rules and agreements are affected? There are trade union rules, certainly; agreements with proprietors and editors on a paper's policy, perhaps; agreements between proprietors and unions, no doubt, on a number of subjects. But what is more, the Amendment refers not only to rules and agreements but also to acts and conduct.

My noble friend Lord Lloyd of Hampstead seemed to think that even with this inclusion in the Amendment there was introduced no new statutory course of action and no new statutory right of any kind. It simply makes a resounding declaration in favour of certain developments in the Common Law which have been going on during the past 20 years or so, and it gives the courts encouragement to pursue the line.

I do not wish to debate whether the rights should be statutory or Common Law. But it seems to me that we would in a Statute be declaring that any acts or conduct contrary to the charter would be contrary to public policy and that this would give the courts a right to intervene where, generally speaking, they do not at present. Acts and conduct go very wide indeed; they can cover actions of individuals in a way which rules and agreements cannot; they cover fields of activity where rules and agreements are less likely to do so; for example, the question of access by outside contributors. The result is that it is much more likely that any contravention of the charter could be the subject of appeals to the courts.

In this House we accepted an Amendment from my noble friend Lord Houghton of Sower by establishing a charter; it was originally a thought in the mind of Mr. Hetherington, who was then editor of the Guardian. We now attach very great importance to the charter and, as I said a few moments ago, we believe a charter that has been entered into voluntarily, through co-operation and negotiation by both sides, will be the one that will have a true value, and there will go with it an obligation by both sides to honour not only the words but also the spirit.

We have to take into account the fact that, if the bodies could not agree, the Secretary of State would himself have to produce a charter after 12 months. I think the general view then was that that would be a very great tragedy indeed; it would be far better for the Government not to interfere in matters of the Press. It should be only a last resort, and, if possible, there should be an agreement freely entered into by both sides. But does any noble Lord really believe, bearing in mind all the lessons of the Industrial Relations Act and the present climate, that union leaders would or could sit down with the owners and editors and work out a charter in which they had to have regard to such matters as the rights included in the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, but which were to be followed by sanctions in the courts which could in themselves lead to the sequestration of their union funds? My Lords, let us be realists. The charter, to which we attach the greatest importance, depends upon cooperation from all sides. Setting down those terms and conditions with sanctions at the end would, in my view, preclude any chance of an agreed charter.

My Lords—I say this with a degree of hesitation, but I think it needs to be said—the campaign has been led in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and others who have been very close to (shall I call them?) the Press management; certainly, those influential in the Press field. How will It be seen by employees in the industry as a whole? They are being asked to sit down and work out a charter with sanctions already provided for as a consequence of the pressure and leadership of management in this House. It will be seen as an owners' and editors' charter —in no other way.

I have to say that, in these circumstances, the position of the Secretary of State will be quite impossible. With whom will he consult?—perhaps the management alone. There could be only one answer to all this, my Lords. We would be back in the Industrial Relations Act situation, with court cases, sequestration of funds, bitterness and lack of that co-operation on which, in my view, the Press so desperately depends. I cannot myself imagine a more effective recipe for a further weakening of the Press and the certain loss of more papers. The Government firmly believe that a charter agreed by both sides, with a supervisory body to examine complaints should the charter appear to have been infringed, and with the power and the duty to report, is the best and only way forward. This is a constructive approach; and, to use the phrase of my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack, "For Heaven's sake let us give the industry a chance."

My Lords, as to the Government's intentions, as I said earlier this Bill is a part of our Manifesto commitment. Our intentions have always been clear, and there is no avoiding the commitment that we should repeal the Industrial Relations Act. This Bill is the final stage. Its passage is essential, not just because it is part of our Manifesto, but because it is essential for the general improvement in industrial relations throughout the country, in all industries. I cannot anticipate the Queen's Speech, but I have to tell the House that we shall take any necessary steps in the next Session to ensure the passage of this Bill. It is required under the Parliament Act 1949 that the Bill should be introduced in this House in the state in which it was originally introduced, although there is a procedure under which, by a Speaker's Certificate, any Lords Amendment that has been agreed by the Commons could be included. There is just a chance that a Bill could come to your Lordships' House without containing any provisions regarding the Press. However, recognising the concern which has been expressed on both sides of this House and also in another place, it would be the Government's intention to suggest Amendments that have already been agreed to by both Houses, wherever they may have been moved originally.

The Parliament Act procedure has not been used for many years—not since 1949. Most, I believe, could have foreseen its use only in a supreme clash of principle; a step to be avoided except in exceptional circumstances. During my period in Office, I have seen a number of Bills which have raised great matters of principle that have divided the Parties. There have been moments of deep anxiety, anger and, sometimes, bitterness. Noble Lords opposite have fought hard, but in the end they have been content to acquiesce to the Commons' view. They have been content that they have made the Commons think again. On this Bill, we have made them think more than once.

My Lords, here we have a disagreement, not on principle or on purpose, but solely on method. Is this a matter on which the two Houses should come into conflict? I doubt it, for reasons I shall give in a moment. But it seems to me that there are two immediate consequences, and I beg your Lordships' not to brush either of them lightly aside. Today, as I think we can all agree, the country is faced with a critical economic situation. Great sacrifices will be called for from all our organisations and our people. This is a time of reconciliation, my Lords, and not of confrontation. We are seeing emerging a new sense of cooperation within industry. The unions, with great courage, are parties to an incomes policy which is vital to this country. Their co-operation and support are essential. We have seen, too, the cooperation, the new hope, emerging from the meetings of the three—the CBI, the TUC and the Government—at Chequers. What will be the consequences if this House now fails to pass this Bill, to which supreme importance is attached?

I would ask the House to stand back for a moment to answer this question. On the maintenance of the independence of the Press, we arc not divided. The issue between us is solely a question of means. It can be only a matter of months before this Bill is passed into law. It is accepted that the danger is not immediate; it is even considered remote. Again, I would ask the House not to brush this lightly aside. How would the trade union movement react to the rejection of this Bill this afternoon? True, there will be only delay, but will a few months' delay he a sensible mice to demand, hearing in mind the damage to relations within the newspaper industry itself, and within industry generally? I ask your Lordships not to forget the provisions of this Bill. It concerns not only matters of the Press, but very many matters which the whole trade union and Labour movement has dedicated itself to repeal. Co-operation at any time, and perhaps at this time more particularly, depends on a general spirit of understanding.

I have to say to your Lordships' House that to reject this Bill this afternoon would have grave consequences indeed. I would not wish to speculate on what might be the final outcome to your Lordships' House of the rejection of this Bill, but there is an immediate consequence to which I think I should draw your Lordships' attention. This House, despite its critics, has provided an essential role as a revising Chamber. It has some notable achievements to its credit. Some have been achieved after great heart searching by some of my colleagues; and this Bill is, in itself, no exception. We chipped away at the problems within the constraint of rejecting legal sanctions except where they now exist. We have seen substantial progress. I do not believe that anyone would accuse the Government of having maintained a closed mind except on the legal sanctions and allowing the two sides to be free to agree on the charter. To force a clash between the two Houses could well place in the gravest jeopardy the growing co-operation which a number of us have noticed between the two Houses.

So, my Lords, I pose this question again. Is a few months' delay a proper price in itself to pay for placing in jeopardy the increasing co-operation and understanding between the two Houses? I am nearly at an end. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for having spoken at such length, but this is a matter of considerable gravity to this House. If, despite the publicity and the comments surrounding this issue, the House, for the reasons I have indicated, were now to decide not to press the position, I would not see that as a victory for any one side. If it were a victory at all, it would be a victory for Parliament as a whole. The House will know of the Government's deep commitments to the freedom of the Press—not only in words but also in deeds. I repeat that should there be a threat to the freedom of the Press from whatever source we should not hesitate to legislate. But concerning the Press, and recognising its role within the democratic society, such legislation ought in my view to arise from and be the consequence of agreement and support by all Parties within Parliament. In my view that is essential.

As to deeds, I would refer the House to the Royal Commission on the Press. I will not repeat all the terms of reference but all the matters that we have been debating anxiously over these months are covered by those terms of reference. I understand, and I think the noble and learned Lord himself referred to this, that the Commission have not felt able to consider these matters while legislation is pending. Once we have put this Bill aside then, of course, the Royal Commission are completely free within their terms of reference to consider all these matters. It is clear that we could not anticipate their Report; but if the Report raised matters (especially in regard to the matters we have discussed on this Bill) for which there is all-Party support, and legislation was required, is it conceivable that any Government would fail to legislate?

My Lords, this Bill, in whatever form it eventually emerges as an Act, may not perhaps be the end of the road. I have given at some length the reasons why I would ask this House to agree with the Commons. I would ask your Lordships to remember one last thing. The Press is not just the owners; the Press is not just the editors; the Press is not just the journalists, the compositors, the printers, the packers and those who deliver. The Press is made up of all of them. The independence of the Press, in my view, cannot be protected solely by the law. The law may give it minimal protection; but the independence of the Press as a whole in our democratic society depends on the living body that is within it. Those who spoke in another place did not recognise that there was an immediate threat; they foresaw only the remote possibility. In those circumstances, may I humbly suggest that we should allow both sides of the industry to get together and work out the charter; because that charter, if it is entered into voluntarily and by agreement, has a far greater chance of providing for the independence of the Press than any Act of Parliament or any Amendment to a Bill which is primarily concerned with industrial relations.

Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 3 in lieu of the Commons Amendment No. 2 to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason numbered 4; and do not insist on their disagreement to the Commons Amendment No. 2.—(Lord Shepherd.)

4.26 p.m.

Lord GOODMAN

My Lords, we have listened to a speech of great eloquence and I venture to say of great sincerity. I do not doubt for a moment the sincerity of the expressions of opinion made by the noble Lord, but I regret to have to say that it was also a speech of positively Himalayan irrelevance to the matters that we have to consider. If a prize were to be given for a speech of eloquence and sincerity that in no way related to the matters that we are concerned with, then I think we should award that prize with every kind of distinction to the speaker who has just spoken.

I think it is necessary to tell your Lordships what has happened since we last adjourned. The notion that we have driven this matter to an issue is totally unfair. May I also say, although I do not intend to make a point of it, that I resent the innuendo in the speech that I was in some way speaking on behalf of the proprietors and of other Press interests that had some secondary concern in this matter. That was the innuendo; it was said on that account and it should not have been said. It is a total untruth. I say that here and now in the clearest and most public fashion. Since we last met, I have made every conceivable effort to see whether an accommodation could be reached. My colleagues concerned with me in the matter have made every conceivable effort. The Government have not budged an inch, not a millimetre. The suggestion that this will affront trade union leaders—and they are concerned in the matter—may be true, but the notion that there arc hundreds of thousands of other people, not trade union leaders, who are deeply concerned in this matter, towards whom the Government have not made the slightest gesture, is something that seems to have missed the attention of the noble Lord in making his eloquent speech. Not a whisper or suggestion has been made that their anxiety or concern should be deferred to by any kind of concession.

My Lords, since we last met there has been a debate in the other place. That took place last Thursday. I expected, consequential upon that debate, when there were suggestions that we ought to reach an accord and that accommodation should be come to between us, that some approach would be made to me or my colleagues. No approach of any kind was made, but it reached my ear that there might be an approach made by some devious means. I do not stand on dignity or pride or anything else. I did not want this matter to reach a constitutional issue, and I do not believe it is anywhere near a constitutional issue. I think this is a wild, exaggerated conception that is done, like the fat boy in Pickwick Papers—whose role I would better play than the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd—to curdle the blood. There is no constitutional issue. Anything we are doing here today, we are doing in deference to the rights that we possess in an entirely constitutional fashion. This, if I may say so, is not open to argument.

I sought out the Government to see whether there were any proposals. If I am not in splendid form it is because we were negotiating until well into the early hours of this morning. We had, in my belief, reached agreement in relation to the legal matters that arose. A suggestion was made—and I at once acknowledge that no one said that it was put forward as an official proposal—which was designed to "test the water", but it was a suggestion which emanated from the Government and we totally accepted it in principle. We said, that, subject to a slight revision of the wording to clarify something, we would agree with it. That suggestion, having been put forward at 2 a.m. this morning, was withdrawn at 9 a.m. The idea that the Government are making desperate efforts to conciliate us and to reach an accord is not correct. The suggestion was withdrawn because of the obstinacy of certain persons. I do not wish to attach a stigma to any individuals nor to criticise any individual people. They are all old friends. I would only say that the idea that a united Government are moving forward in the belief that they are doing something for the benefit of mankind is as remote from reality as any conception which has ever been put forward in this House.

I do not wish to arouse laughter, if I may venture to say so to those who are most likely to support me. Nor am I seeking anyone's support. If we have to divide today, I want everyone to divide on the basis of his own conscience. If nobody follows me into that Lobby, I shall be happy to go there on my own. But the notion that this is a situation in which there is a genuine, ingrained belief on the part of the Government that they are doing something which is right cannot be supported if they will question their own consciences and question their own colleagues.

What we are doing is to defer to a view that the only consideration worth having in mind is a trade union consideration. Time and again, I have heard the proposition that this is an assault on the National Union of Journalists. It has nothing to do with the National Union of Journalists and, when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, detailing the horrible consequences that might ensue if either my Amendment or that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, were accepted, I felt that, though it may be that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Shepherd, is quite right, he should have come forward with Amendments. All I want to do is something very simple. I want to provide a situation in which a man who is engaged in a creative process cannot be prevented from exercising that creative process because he has been expelled, arbitrarily, without cause and without justification, from a union. If that happens, I want him to have some effective remedy.

That is all I want. If the legal methods which I have proposed are inappropriate or likely to cause the earth to tumble, why do the Government, possessing the resources of legal draftsmanship and all the skill and knowledge man could wish for, not produce a means of doing it without the awful consequences which will follow my Amendment? I, in my humility, know that I am quite capable of producing legal Amendments of the most terrible character. But I have done the best I could and it has been open to the Government, with the utmost simplicity, to use their resources and to say that they accepted the fact that a man must not be expelled from his union without redress, without justification, without appeal and without compensation, and that they would provide some sort of remedy together with a legal means of enforcement. It would have taken the Government half an hour to do that.

As it is, we have had an immense debate instancing the awful things that might happen if the Amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, were accepted. I might say that the noble and learned Lord had to draft his Amendment in half an hour. If people realised the speed at which these matters are being tossed back to us, they would understand that what happens at Wimbledon is slow in comparison. It is positively in slow motion. We had a debate in the other place on Thursday and we are debating the matter again today after a most complicated set of Amendments on a Monday. We have to produce Amendments to deal with that situation and then they are analysed, subjected to strictures and it is suggested that they have been drafted with some ulterior motive in mind.

That is all we want. We want nothing else. In relation to this Bill, I wish it to be inserted that a man who writes—a creative man, a journalist—may not be expelled by his fellows without cause, without justification and without some means of redress. There is no means of redress. What has been put into the Bill is a suggestion that an unofficial, informal tribunal should adjudicate in these matters and that that should be the only remedy. I am not saying that that may not well have a substantial moral effect. I am only saying that responsible people, concerned for the welfare of the profession, would not regard that as an adequate redress or an adequate protection.

Some most astonishing things have been said. We were told that if one set up a domestic tribunal and if subsequently one had a right of appeal from its deliberations, that would make it impossible for the tribunal to do its work. I do not know anyone who can say such a thing. There are innumerable domestic tribunals working very successfully and efficiently. Take the General Medical Council, where there is a right of appeal to the courts if something outrageous is done. I could spend an hour listing the domestic tribunals in which this happens. Why is it impossible only in this instance to have one? If I were prone to suspect motivation, I should say that the speech we have just heard might, had it come from a less honourable man, have been exposed to the risk of being wholly disingenuous. That it was not wholly disingenuous I accept in view of the source from which it came. But the notion that one has to rely on a domestic tribunal because it cannot operate if there is an occasional right of appeal is, if I may say so, pure nonsense.

I have made every effort arid every suggestion. I want to tell the House, if we have to fix the responsibility for what ultimately happens, that I have had discussions with the NUJ and with every side, and that I have, for instance, made the proposal that the domestic tribunals should be resorted to before there is any resort to the courts. This is done in Canada, where one has to exhaust the rights in a domestic tribunal before one can go to the courts. What is wrong with that? Anyone who wants to can appeal to the domestic tribunal and if he thinks that he has not obtained justice there he can go to the courts.

Another matter which I have to point out is that all the appalling consequences of my Amendment and that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, can only arise after a finding on the facts by one of Her Majesty's judges. It is only if a man is found to have been wronged, victimised or affronted that there will be any judgment in his favour. It is only then that the question arises as to what sort of law applies. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, appeared to suggest that these Amendments would create factual situations and that they could give a man who was not wronged a right to a remedy which did not arise because his behaviour had not entitled him to it and that he would become entitled to it because of some such Amendment. We are concerned only with the situation in which a man has been plainly and patently wronged and where the courts, having established that fact, apply some law.

There was some difference between the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and myself—and I may say that it was a most honourable difference—about the nature of the legal remedy that ought to arise. I accept that there are doubts about his remedy, as there are doubts about my own. I am sorry that, in the event, I did not adhere to the original proposal I had down, which was a simple one to insert a statutory right to protect rights under the charter. It was simple and uncomplicated. I abandoned it because I was given strong encouragement from certain quarters not immensely remote from the Government that if we pursued the Common Law remedy and pursued the remedy of public policy it was likely that this would find acceptance. I did not want a constitutional confrontation. I wanted to follow any course that was likely to be most acceptable. Hence, I abandoned something clear and simple in favour of something which was unquestionably uncertain, unquestionably obscure and unquestionably open to argument. I did so in the hope that it at least provided the glimmer of a candle that the liberty in this case could be preserved. We kept a candle alight. That is ail we are seeking to do. If a candle is kept alight in a country where liberty thrives, or has thrived, it will not be long before a blazing light ensues because other people will follow in its wake. What we do not want to do is to snuff out that candle.

Heaven forbid! that we should have a constitutional crisis. If we divide today, we shall be exercising the rights we have. No sort of threat will move me in the slightest because I take a view—which may not be shared by others—that a House which is incapable of exercising any sort of influence is a House which might just as well be abolished.

Several Noble Lords

Hear, hear!

Lord GOODMAN

My Lords, I see no possible reason for apprehension about the dark forebodings uttered by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. All I can say to him is this: we shall do what is constitutionally right. We shall raise no levies in the courtyards. We shall not arm the people in Yorkshire or Cornwall or anywhere else. We shall not march on anyone. We shall exercise constitutional rights given to us by the other place and we shall exercise them to a point where we shall have exhausted the legal remedies available to us and shall have demonstrated to the people of this country that we believe this to be a bad and evil law. Having succeeded in demonstrating that to them, we shall make no further efforts to hold anything up. We shall not engage in childish play about whether or not we can hold things up for a week or a fortnight. We shall merely have declared our intentions.

I regret the time that I am taking, but this is a very serious matter and I feel it important to explain to the House what are the differences between us. They are very simple. If there is to be a charter—and at this moment there is no charter and all the prating about the charter is the most unrealistic part of the whole of this unreal discussion, for no charter exists, no discussions or meetings have taken place and there is no reason necessarily to suppose that any charter will be brought into being—it will not be discouraged by anyone, but the likelihood of an agreed charter must be regarded as speculative. There is no charter of any kind, and nothing anyone has said has discouraged anyone trying to achieve a charter. But what we have said is this: if there is to be a charter, there are a few fundamental matters: they do not constitute a charter, they do not constitute the beginning of a charter, they constitute the essential safeguards that are requisite if a charter makes any sense. The one to which I particularly draw attention is the one on which the negotiations have broken down: The rights of journalists not to be arbitrarily or unreasonably excluded or expelled from membership of a trade union. All I have asked is that that should be inserted in the framework and structure of this charter as one of the matters that gets included in some tangible form. That is the major difference between myself and the Government; that is the major difference that justified that splendid oration by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in which he informed us of the dangers with which we are confronted. Forget the remedy, my Lords; do not think anything about the question of whether or not it is legally enforced. I want this charter—whether it be on a voluntary or a legal basis—to contain a provision that journalists should not be unreasonably excluded or unreasonably expelled. That is the major difference between myself and my friends in the Government; that and nothing else, except on the question of what form of legal remedy should exist, upon which I will say something in a moment.

If the noble Lord will rise now to say that he will accept that that is inserted in the charter, we shall be three-quarters of the way home. If he will say, on behalf of the Secretary of State, that he is prepared to have that put into the charter, there is no real issue between us. But what I will say to him is this: if he will not say it, then the suspicions that we entertain about why he will not say it, and why his friend the Secretary of State will not say it, seem to be very well founded. Why will he not say it? Would he like me to sit down in order that he may explain why? That is what I am asking him. He talks darkly about constitutional issues; he talks darkly about people who are associated with Press proprietors, and he refers to other mammoth irrelevancies. What he will not say is why we cannot make that provision, as one of the matters that is to be fixed there for all time when they come to create the charter.

Is he telling me that that will inhibit the negotiators, when the time comes, in their free negotiations and that with petulance they will have a little tantrum and say, "We cannot negotiate a charter; look what the terrible Lords have done; they have required us to accept that as part of this charter we shall not throw a man out of the union without reason, without justice, without excuse."? Is he seriously saying that the National Union of Journalists will raise any such childish suggestion? I challenge him on it because I do not believe it is true. I will ask him something else: does he really believe that this is discrimination against the NUJ? I heard on the radio the other Sunday the Secretary of State say that what we were doing was extraordinary, discriminatory legislation against the NUJ. Reflect, please, what is the extraordinary discrimination? The extraordinary discrimination is that we are bestowing on every member of the NUJ—which means on the NUJ as a whole, because the union is its membership, and its membership is the union—a right of appeal if any of them are flung out of the Union wrongly, improperly and without redress. That is the discrimination that the NUJ are suffering. I venture to think that it is a discrimination which most people would suffer with alacrity and great willingness. There is no other form of discrimination against that Union.

If he is saying that we are discriminating against the people who might want to throw them out without excuse and without justification, then I am prepared to say that this is discrimination about which I have a total composure; this is a discrimination which the House will accept without any sense of guilt. But to suggest that there is a discrimination against that union because they are being given that right! I should like to invite the noble Lord to invite his friends in the NUJ to hold a ballot of the entire union and ask themselves whether they regard themselves as discriminated against if they have bestowed on them a right of appeal, a right of redress, if they are thrown out of the union unjustly and without cause. I should like to see the result of that ballot. I would be prepared to wager a substantial part of my own very modest fortune that the result would not vindicate the view expressed by the noble Lord. We would find an overwhelming number of people who would say, "What is all this about? We are being told those monsters in the Lords, those capitalists, those bloated proprietors, are seeking to do us some injury and to damage our cause. What they appear to be wanting to do is to give us a right of action, a right of appeal, if arbitrarily and unjustly a man who writes is thrown out of the Union".

Consider one of the observations made by the noble Lord when he referred to "one group of workers". May I venture to say this is an absurdity. This is not a group of workers in any sense in which that phrase can be used. The people assembled on the shop-floor—working side-by-side in fraternity, doing the same job—are a group of people, some of whom work at home, some of whom work in Washington, some of whom are climbing the Himalayas, some of whom are in bed deciding what to write. The notion that you can impose an industrial discipline on this disparate collection of human beings can be entertained only by someone who is seeking to persuade us of the total unreality of the Government's case.

What is the other Amendment? The other Amendment we want is a faint flicker of a suggestion that the law has not been expelled from human transaction. There are two issues on which this matter ought to be considered by the country. One is whether people can be expelled from a union or any other organisation where their right to work is involved without any appeal and any redress. The second issue is whether it is appropriate for the legislature to say that there are circumstances in which the rule of law should be totally outlawed. I know that the trade unions were seriously affronted by the operation of the 1971 Act. I would point out—and I do not wish to make debating points—that we are not concerned with the repeal of the 1971 Act. We are concerned with the repeal of a section in an Act passed by Her Majesty's Government—the 1974 Act.

Section 5 says in the clearest terms that if a man is thrown out of a union or excluded from a union, he has a right of redress. That is what we arc being asked to amend; we are being asked to amend it on the footing that, having been inserted by Her Majesty's Government, they have now found that that provision is inconvenient to certain people who do not want to abide by it. I can only say this: that the day we set our seal on a refusal to allow the courts to redress a wrong of this kind, after the utmost discouragement to the people who are seeking to bring litigation—litigation will be slow to be brought by journalists, and, in certain circumstances, they will resort to this tribunal, and they will go to the courts only when there is no other remedy to enable them to work—that we should deny them that remedy, seems to me wholly inappropriate and wholly wrong.

My friends and I have made every effort to compose this matter; I hope that it is not the end of the day. I have explained what there is between us: there is between us that we want in the charter, an explicit statement that in some form the expulsion of journalists from a union, or their exclusion from the union, will not be permitted without cause and without redress. We want that in the charter, and we want some form of legal remedy to enable them to enforce those rights in the event of their being excluded from justice by circumstances we cannot envisage, since we are not prepared to assume that all bodies of men act like communities of angels. That is what we want. If the Government decide to make a constitutional issue on this matter, the fault is theirs and not ours.

4.49 p.m.

Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE

My Lords, I must first apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and to the House for the fact that I was absent for the first moments of his speech. I was performing a public duty at the request of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, one of which he is fully aware. Therefore, I hope I may be excused. I have had the advantage of reading a fairly full note made by my noble friend at my side.

I do not want to spend very much time in this debate; indeed, in spite of the appropriately full length of the first two speeches, I hope that our debate may be reasonably short, since much that would properly be said on an occasion of this kind has been said more than once during the passage of this Bill. Least of all do I wish to spend much time myself, since I found myself addressing your Lordships' House on the main issues only a few days ago, within the recollection of your Lordships.

The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, spoke as if there was general agreement between the two sides of the House on everything except minor matters of procedure and methods, and as if there was no difference of aim but only of method between us, and no question of principle. I regret that I part company from the noble Lord there and I will tell him what I think are the questions of principle upon which we differ— because I think they are questions of principle and not of method.

The first is that the Government have appeared from first to last to take the stance that this charter, upon whose desirability we are now agreed, with different degrees of enthusiasm, should be left entirely to the industry as something which it is their business to decide, and nobody else's. We believe, and certainly I believe, most sincerely that if we are to have a charter of this kind the minimal requirements of it are something with which the people, and therefore Parliament, are intimately concerned, because the freedom of the Press, which is the subject matter of the charter, is not a private matter to be debated between the various organs within the industry enumerated by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. It is something which concerns us all.

The availability of the Press, access to outside contributors, the freedom of editors from pressure to suppress or distort news, the independence of editors, the continued existence of more than one professional body, so long as there are substantial numbers of journalists who support them—these are not matters which are purely private concerns of the various parties within the Press. We think that the minimal requirements should be stated in the charter. That, I think, is more than a question of means or method; it is a question of principle. If we are wrong about that, then of course we are wrong about the merits. But if we are right about that, then we can hardly be wrong to express our view in accordance with our deeply and sincerely held conviction.

The second point of principle which I think exists is that where there is a wrong, a proven wrong, by which an individual has suffered, this would not be a civilised society, nor one in conformity either with the European Convention or with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, if, in the end, access to the courts were not provided to give effect to it. Those are the two questions. They are not questions of detail; they are questions of principle. I must say this to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. I quite agree with him that the situation of this country is not such that one would seek to provoke any unnecessary dispute, nor, I hope—and I speak within the recollection of my fellow Peers—have I done so during the course of these debates, although I have had some hard things to say, either personally to the Government or in wider fields with any other section of the community, or in connection with another place.

Where differences of principle are sincerely felt, they must be dealt with not by asking one side to abandon its stance but in accordance with the law of the Constitution, which provides a way out of these things. It is not a matter for bad temper, but it is also not a matter for papering over cracks which are deep cleavages of conviction in matters of this kind. Therefore, if I may, I should like to say this about my own Amendment, although my noble friend Lord Carrington will be giving advice to those who wish to follow it as to the course we should take about the individual matters.

It has been said from the start from the Government Benches—more often from the Back-Benches than from the Front Bench or from the Woolsack, for a reason which I will disclose—that what we must do in order to have peace in industry is to keep trade relations of this kind out of the courts. That has been the cry. I doubt not that it is sincerely put forward by whomsoever it was put forward, but I am bound to remind the House that it is the purest nonsense, because the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has said during the course of this Bill, not once but, I think, four times, and the Attorney-General in another place has said not once but, I think, about six times, that the courts are not being kept out of these relationships.

The Common Law remedy is preserved. The member of the union excluded contrary to rules or natural justice is allowed to sue for damages, even if the union does not want to pay. Judgments can be given, funds can be sequestrated and the whole procedure which has caused so much alarm can be re-enacted in those circumstances; and the court, as the noble Lord well knows, can also declare certain rules ultra viresand invalid because they offend against reason and common sense. In fact, more than once in recent years the courts have done so. A third party who is injured by a union otherwise than in the course of a trade dispute can bring an action against the union for tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds, and judgment can be given, irrespective of this Bill, even if the union does not want to pay. The whole processof sequestration can be enforced in that case and no-one has suggested that this will cause bitterness.

It is only when I propose an Amendment, the terms of which I will venture to remind the House, that this immense but wholly imaginary bogey is introduced. And what is my Amendment? It is nothing like that: it is nothing like Stratford v. Lindley; it is nothing like the Torquay hotel case; it is nothing like the other cases to which I have referred by implication. It is that if, after the members of the industry have sat down and agreed a charter with certain minimum requirements, which are not themselves in dispute but on which we ask that the Statute should make them pay, someone is aggrieved thereby and has suffered material damage, it shall be the business, not, indeed, of the courts, but of a body to be set up by the industry itself, with the full approval and at the suggestion of the Government, to decide whether there has been a grievance and, if proved, to state how much the damage is; and that their decision should then be treated not as a judgment which can be taken to the Court of Appeal or to the wicked Old House of Lords, but which can be enforced as an arbitrator's award. What could be milder than that, in comparison with those instances I have just given? If your Lordships are really going to say that a union, an employer or a third party who has put his hand to a charter and has broken it, and has put his hand to the formation of a tribunal—

The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of INDUSTRY (Lord Beswick)

Address the House!

Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE

My Lords, I am addressing the House, if the noble Lord will forgive me. But this is rather a serious debate and I should be grateful if he did not interfere—

Several Noble Lords

Hear, hear!

Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE

—who has put his hand to a tribunal of the industry's own composition, has broken the charter and has been found by that tribunal to have broken it and to have damaged somebody else who is wholly innocent, would then not only refuse to pay but would prefer to go to prison rather than to obey the award of his own tribunal based on his own charter, or prefer to allow goods to be sequestrated rather than to write a cheque, where are we coming to, and what is the rule of law which members of unions and other bodies are prepared to accept at any time? And when we hear that they are prepared to accept an award of hundreds of thousands of pounds by the courts to which they object, at the suit of a third party—such as the Torquay hotel—but not of their own tribunal based on their own charter, what kind of intelligence or common sense or even good faith can we attribute to them?

These are questions which the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, did not answer. Instead he wants us to accept a charter without minimal requirements and without any sanction of any kind behind it. When I was a child a charming story was written by Beatrix Potter called, The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse. Mrs. Tittlemouse was a mouse who offered hospitality to a toad called Mr. Jackson. The hospitality which she offered to the toad was two hard, round cherry stones, which she could appreciate but Mr. Jackson could not. Mr. Jackson rejected the proffered hospitality with the words: "No teeth, Mrs. Tittlemouse. No teeth" —and that is what is wrong with the Government's attitude today.

The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, professed to find in this matter a danger of some terrible constitutional crisis between the two Houses of Parliament. I say with some confidence to your Lordships that there could be no constitutional crisis unless it were contrived. A constitutional crisis between the two Houses could take place if in fact the process of Government were held up. One knows from the other side of the world that another and more democratically organised Second Chamber has in fact created a constitutional crisis, rightly or wrongly, in such circumstances in accordance with the terms of its Constitution, of which we have no right to speak except by way of illustration. But, my Lords, there is no danger of that here. There is no danger at all of a crisis being caused by this Chamber's holding up the process of government, the elected Executive, which bases its powers constitutionally upon a majority of the other place. Nor is there any possibility of a crisis when, quite conscientiously, on a matter of principle about permanent legislation, or legislation which is intended to be permanent, the two Houses sincerely differ and the matter can be put right by process of law.

The Parliament Act enables the Government to pass the Bill in their own form by January. And we are asked to believe that we must vote otherwise than in accordance with our consciences in order to save the Government the embarrassment of taking the responsibility for this legislation, in which we do not believe, by passing it over our heads under the Parliament Act by January. I cannot believe that the noble Lord is serious in putting forward that proposition. The noble Lord strove to say that the Parliament Act was designed to operate only in moments of supreme crisis—I forget the actual language which he used. That was never the argument in 1911; it was never the argument in 1949 when the amending Act was passed, and I have ample quotations to establish that. It was designed to establish that where there was a genuine disagreement, after proper discussion in which each side played its part constitutionally and sincerely—as I take it both sides have done in this case—the Government of the day, through its Commons majority, should have a legal way out which would cause dishonour neither to themselves, unless their proposals were inherently dishonourable, nor to this place if it happened to differ from the majority in another.

My Lords, I have said all I have to say. I put forward the Amendment which stood in my name simply in order, as I said before, to be helpful. I did so because I thought that the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was inadequate. I did so also because it was much milder in some ways than Lord Good-man's because I made use of the body proposed by the Government themselves. I have no desire to act in a spirit of rancour or vanity. So long as the two principles with which I began are properly observed, I claim no pride of parenthood of this particular form. I will take whatever course is proposed by my noble friend Lord Carrington. But I would ask the House sincerely to believe that it will not in the end preserve either its existence or its honour if it refuses to follow its conscience in a matter of principle.

5.8 p.m.

Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY

My Lords, I hope that this debate will last long enough for the matter still remaining between us to be thoroughly thrashed out. I shall not raise the constitutional issue. If the Government decide to invoke the Parliament Act, then your Lordships can debate that matter when it arises. There are questions of the merits of this dispute that obviously are still misunderstood. A great deal of confusion exists about what is at stake here. Last Saturday night I heard a British Broadcasting Corporation commentator refer to this Bill as "the Press Bill" One has heard a great deal about freedom of the Press or Press freedom. These are the words which have been used in connection with this dispute and this Bill. This is not the Press Bill; this Bill relates to industrial relations, trade unions and employees generally.

The first thing that should be pointed out is that the provisions of the Bill before the House have been accepted by your Lordships as applicable to all other trade unions and all other employees except those engaged in journalism—all other trade unionists, including the printing unions in the newspaper industry. All other unions are to be brought within the provisions of the Bill as it stands. Your Lordships have agreed to that. So the first question is whether discrimination is being made against one particular union or one industry. I do not call it discrimination but I do call it distinction. There is no doubt that we all agree on drawing a distinction between the Press and those engaged in it and other industries in the private sector. We are doing this because we recognise the special role of the Press and its importance to the basic freedoms of the country. We are trying to do that by providing a charter that will relate to this industry and to no other. All centres around the charter.

When this Bill first came to your Lordships' House no charter was provided for in it and the Amendments put down by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and other noble Lords provided for no charter. There were sanctions but there was no charter. I proposed the charter in the hope that it would provide the basis upon which fears could be resolved and doubts and disputes between representatives of the industry could be settled in such a manner as to produce in the end a code of conduct which would be agreed to by those directly concerned and would meet with the approval of both Houses of Parliament. This distinguishes the Press, the industry of journalism, from every other union and every other industry; so already we have gone a long way towards recognising the importance of those people who are engaged in this vocation.

Where have we come unstuck on this charter? Not, I submit, on its scope, but on two matters: first, preconditions and, secondly, sanctions for infringement. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, referred to preconditions as minimum requirements. This reveals not a difference of principle but a difference of approach. Those who want preconditions, minimum requirements, stipulations to be imposed upon those who are directly concerned with the discussions on the charter do not trust those who are to draw up the charter to fulfil the requirements of this House. Preconditions are not laid down if you are satisfied that common sense, judgment and a full sense of responsibility will prevail. There is no need to lay down preconditions unless you fear that without them your requirements will not be met. Therefore, in laying down preconditions there is an clement of mistrust.

When my noble friend the Leader of the House referred to the possible effect upon the unions concerned he was stressing what to most of us is the obvious. If one shows mistrust in people, in many cases the response one gets is not the kind of response, the kind of mood, that one is hoping for. This is deeply psychological and it is not yet understood. This afternoon we have heard echoes of the debates on the Industrial Relations Act 1971. I imagine that we could find in Hansard of that period the speech which was made just now by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, in relation to the attempt to impose the same conditions upon the trade union movement generally. However, the 1971 Act has been abandoned. The former Government went to the country to try to maintain their hold upon the framework of the law that had been imposed upon the trade unions. They failed and a Government came in that was pledged to remove that Act from the Statute Book. That is part of what this Bill is about.

Should we have preconditions? Should we have minimum requirements? I say, my Lords, No. We must define the range of the discussions on the charter—what we are expecting it to deal with and what we are calling upon it to do—and then allow the discussions to continue. At the end of the day there are two remedies for possible mishap. One is that an agreed charter has to come before both Houses of Parliament. If there is not an agreed charter, the Secretary of State has to lay a draft of his own. A few minutes ago the noble Lord, Lord Goodman—

Lord SHINWELL

My Lords, may I ask my noble friend a question. I waited until there was a pause in his argument. Supposing that there had been no question of a charter and that the Common Law, which applies to every other trade union and to employers, had been allowed to prevail, could not we have avoided a great deal of this trouble?

Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY

My Lords, I will reply to my noble friend, although it takes me away for a moment or two from the main course of my argument. When my noble friend Lord Shepherd said that the Government desire to sweep away the last vestiges of the 1971 Act, he may have overlooked the fact that we are not restoring the pre-1971 position. This Bill and the 1974 Act does more than restore the 1971 position, for this reason. Before the Industrial Relations Act 1971 there was no Statute Law either about the closed shop or about compensation for dismissal arising from a closed shop situation.

There was the Common Law compensation for wrongful dismissal if the court held that the dismissal had been wrong and had damaged the employee concerned. However, the 1971 Act provided for compensation for wrongful dismissal by a process other than that of going to the courts. Industrial tribunals could deal with complaints of unfair dismissal and award compensation. But when the present Government dealt with the 1971 Act they did not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. In the 1974 Act they re-enacted the compensation provisions for unfair dismissal that were included in the 1971 Act. Industrial tribunals are now awarding compensation under the 1974 Act which contains this re-enactment of the compensation provisions of the 1971 Act.

In order to avoid any doubt or difficulty, this Bill and the 1974 Act provide that in a closed-shop situation dismissal is not to be regarded as wrongful dismissal. An employee who seeks a remedy for alleged wrongful dismissal has to go elsewhere for it. In my view, that distinguishes materially the post-1974 and pre-1971 situation. Therefore, when my noble friend asks why could not we sweep it all away and go back to the pre-1971Common Law position, the answer I must give to him is that both Houses of Parliament passed the 1974 Act. It is on the Statute Book and the provisions about wrongful and unfair dismissal are contained in it. That is my digression in order to answer my noble friend.

I come now to the question of sanctions. Here there is always a plausible argument that if there is a wrong one should be able to go to the courts for the remedy. In many cases that is so, but we have this very complicated, intricate and dangerous matter to deal with in connection with the 1971 Act, and although we may recoil from the conclusion that, in some circumstances, the law cannot be enforced against a mass of people, we have to be realistic about the new centres of powers in the community and about what the law is appropriate for and what it is not.

There is provision for redress, first, in the proposal that there should be a tribunal to consider, to reach a judgment upon and to publish their conclusions on any alleged breach; and there is also the recourse to the special tribunal which has been set up under the Employment Protection Bill for the consideration of matters of this kind. I said on a previous occasion that, on the whole, the chances of getting justice in matters of this kind are better if the judgment is made by those whose judgment will be respected and accepted, rather than by a tribunal whose findings may not commend themselves to the bodies of people concerned. It is matter of judgment and not a matter of principle, and this is where the difference between us lies.

Apart from the Parliament Act and the words being uttered, I hope that your Lordships will see reason in the plea that we should accept the Commons Amendments and give this a trial, leaving the Royal Commission on the Press to continue its work on this and other matters relating to the Press. I understand that the Royal Commission feels unable to give consideration to the matters which arise in our debate today, while Parliament is still discussing them. That is not an unreasonable view for a Royal Commission to take and, while we are at it, the Royal Commission cannot proceed. If we resist the House of Commons this afternoon, it is obvious that this matter will remain open for months to come, because it will require the reintroduction of a new Bill in the House of Commons and certain Parliamentary processes will have to be gone through.

While all that is happening, I understand that the Royal Commission will not feel able to consider these matters of the closed shop and the other issues which we have so fully debated from time to time. In my view, that will be a great handicap. We want the Report from the Royal Commission. We want to know far more about the Press than the matters that we are dealing with, and the Royal Commission cannot complete this mammoth, difficult and important task if it is to be inhibited in dealing with matters of this importance because they are before Parliament at the present time, and are likely to remain so for a while to come. So I hope your Lordships will bear that in mind. No irreparable harm will be done, even if your Lordships think that if the Bill is passed as the Government want it to be passed there may be harm in it. Nobody will see the difference between one version and another for a little while to come, but we certainly want the Royal Commission to get on with the job.

I wish that the Leader of the Opposition, Mrs. Thatcher, had not made her speech on this subject. I have convinced myself so far that this is a genuine difference of opinion on the merits of the matter and is not politically motivated. I hate to think that the Conservative Party might wish to put out the story that a Labour Government arc using the Parliament Act to suppress the freedom of the Press. I hate to think of the kind of propaganda which, in unscrupulous hands, might be disseminated about this matter, while we, who are thoroughly acquainted with it, know that no such construction could possibly be put on what the Government are asking the House to do. It is true, of course, that we are asking the House to diminish—not to remove—the degree of distinction drawn between the National Union of Journalists and all other trade unionists. I am not going to call it discrimination, but the National Union of Journalists is asked, because of the nature of its vocation, to accept conditions which no other trade union in the country is asked to put up with, and we have to be fully justified in attempting to impose those conditions before we do so. I do not believe that we have yet given the National Union of Journalists a chance to show its constructive approach to the question of the charter.

I conclude by saying this. The final remedy lies in the hands of Parliament, whether the charter is an agreed one or whether it is drafted by the Secretary of State in the event of disagreement between the parties concerned. No dam- age of the kind feared can possibly happen, unless and until a closed shop agreement is reached. I must stress this. There is no divine law descending upon the scene in Fleet Street, imposing closed shops. Closed shops are agreements between the parties concerned, and the conditions relating to closed shops are matters of agreement between the parties concerned. A closed shop agreement with the National Union of Journalists, in conformity with the charter, could make special provision for the position of the Institute of Journalists; it could make special provision for the position of the editors.

In fact, all these things are suggested heads of agreement in the Bill itself, and the difference here is about whether there should be minimum requirements, whether there should be imposed preconditions before anyone starts talking at all, or whether we rely on these things being done, and, if they are not done, being remedied here and elsewhere, or by the Secretary of State. There is the remedy. Nobody else has these conditions and they are very valuable indeed. This is the long stop of Parliament against the failure of voluntary effort to reach agreement in the interests of those concerned, and in the interests of the community.

I feel passionately about this subject. I believe that the whole approach from the Benches opposite is mistaken and misconceived and will presage disaster in this field, as indeed it did in the field of industrial relations generally in 1971. Have they not learned anything from what happened then? Have they not taken a measure of the situation in 1975? Nobody needs to agree to a closed shop agreement in Fleet Street which does not satisfy employers, proprietors, editors and the rest. Nobody will force a closed shop arrangement down the throat of anybody, except by an attempt at industrial action to do so, and then we shall know what it is all about. Then we shall know what is the danger, if it occurs; then we shall know how to deal with it, if it occurs. The pledge given by the Government is surely one on which we can rely, and if anything happens which remotely impairs the freedom of the Press and puts editors in strait jackets, or sends them trembling down the corridors to their offices for fear of what the chapel of the NUJ may say or do, then Parliament can step in and say, "We will not have it." If the indications already given are fulfilled at the end of this debate, I believe that the mistake made on more counts than one this afternoon will reverberate in Parliament and elsewhere for a long time to come.

Lord GOODMAN

My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, sits down, might I ask a question of some relevance? Nobody has played a more worthy part in seeking to compose this difference, and I am sure that the noble Lord would not want to mislead the House. The noble Lord said that an agreement might be reached with the NUJ which made provision for, for instance, the continuing survival of the IOJ, or an agreement might be reached which made provision for editors not being members of unions. Has the noble Lord made any inquiries of the NUJ as to whether they would agree to these provisions? I have, and I will say no more than that.

Lord HOUGHTON of SOWERBY

My Lords, the answer is that I have not, for a very good reason. I have no desire to prejudge the attitude of the NUJ, or to find out what their attitude may be. Obviously, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, is in touch with various elements in this industry and what he has to say on these matters is important. But I do not myself accept that any prejudgment on the intentions of the NUJ is justified in this House this afternoon. I should want to know what was the authority, and what accompanied the words that may be in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. Let us keep them out of it. Let us assume that there are here people of good will, honour and common sense. They surely exist in the NUJ in large enough numbers to sec that, at the end, we will have a charter which is acceptable to both Houses of Parliament.

5.32 p.m.

Lord BYERS

My Lords, I hope I may be forgiven for intervening in what is becoming a private quarrel. I do not propose to follow the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sower by, in his prophecies of doom. I am sure the noble Lord believes sincerely that the end is nigh, and I have the sense that your Lordships would like to come to a conclusion of the debate, so I will not take up too much time. However, I think that a contribution from the Liberal Benches is called for.

I think we should first recognise that since the Bill was first introduced we have made a great deal of progress. I do not follow the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, in believing that there is a great deal of confusion. I think there is a much better understanding of the issues at stake, and a much better understanding of the problem. There are still genuine and sincere differences of opinion—and they are genuine and they are sincere. I shall revert to this question of what is a matter of judgment and what is a matter of principle in a moment or two. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, can take a great deal of credit for the fact that in the Bill we now have provision for a charter and for a tribunal to pronounce on breaches of the charter when they occur, which is a step forward. What is absent, unless certain Lords' Amendments are included in the Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said, is any form of remedy for an individual or organisation suffering damage from breach of the charter. That concerns us greatly as Liberals on these Benches.

I fully understand the view of those who say that the experience of the Industrial Relations Act, so far as the trade unions were concerned, was such that we must never use the courts again in matters affecting the unions. I understand that view. I also understand how sincerely it is held. But I believe that this issue is really one of principle. It is an issue of a fundamental freedom, a freedom which has to be protected if it is to continue. Freedom must be protected by law. It cannot be protected by hope; it cannot be protected by assurances; it cannot be protected by the results of a ballot responded to by 30 per cent. of the members of a union. The ultimate protection of all the freedoms we enjoy today must surely be by way of the law of the land to which all of us, for our common protection, must be subject. Therefore, if there is a charter and a tribunal to pronounce on breaches of the law, there must logically be a remedy within the law if the protection, particularly of the individual, is to be made a reality.

We are told that we should not select one particular group of workers for special provision. I do not accept that as a principle. There is a very great difference between an industrial closed shop in which pay and conditions are negotiated, and a closed shop which can censor contributions to newspapers, restrict the rights of editors if it is so minded, and contain the freedom of the Press. As a matter of fact, we deal specially with and make special provisions for certain groups of workers—the Armed Forces and the police. This is not something which we can just push to one side. It is suggested that we should leave all this—which, to our minds, constitutes a principle of the freedom of the Press—to both sides of industry. I believe that there is a case for the public interest to be represented on an issue of this sort.

My Lords, I have no hesitation in believing that this House will be doing its duty by insisting on its Amendments, though perhaps not all of them. In the interests of getting closer agreement, we may well be prepared not to press the Amendments—and, when I say "press", I mean support if it is decided to go through the Division Lobby—proposed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, to which my noble friend Lord Wigoder added his name. In our view, there must be something done to give an indication of what should be in the charter and, at the end of the road, there must be a remedy which people can use. These Amendments may not be perfect, but I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that the Government must share responsibility for any imperfection there. They would have done much better in the interests of the House to come forward with assistance in drafting an Amendment which would enable us to put in a proper remedy.

Above all, I hope we shall not be put off from doing our duty by threats from some quarters of another place. I speak as one who would welcome reform of this House, a reform which was frustrated by the Member of another place who today villifies us for exercising our rights. It was a very bad piece of work that was perpetrated by the present Secretary of State for Employment in 1968. There are a number of people who will never forgive him for teaming up with Enoch Powell to frustrate the proper reform of this House. I have been over this ground of Lords Reform for 30 years. I voted in 1949 against the proposals of the Labour Government to reduce the power of the Lords, because those proposals contained no element of reform at all. The Liberal Party has a consistent record of wanting to see power and reformgoing together.

The fact is that in insisting on the Goodman Amendments we are working within the limits of delay imposed by the Parliament Act 1949. We are doing nothing more than was contemplated and openly accepted by the Labour Government of the day—and many of us were in that Parliament, and know that that was so. In 1949, the late Mr. Herbert Morrison, in closing the debate on the Second Reading of the Parliament Bill said: The Lords are in our view entitled to ask that the Commons should be required to give time and consideration to the Amendments which they propose to Commons Bills. That, as I think v, e should all agree, is reasonable. If the position were that the Lords sent their Amendments to the Commons but the Commons could indifferently ignore them and pass the Bill without further ado"— which is what Mr. Foot would like to see in the end, then, said Mr. Morrison— the Lords would be entitled to say that there was no guarantee that any serious consideration would be given to their Amendments, and we might as well resort to single-Chamber government. This is what Mr. Michael Foot wants; he is on the Record as wanting it, but not his other Cabinet colleagues. Mr. Morrison concluded by saying: The present Bill adequately safeguards the rights of the Lords in this respect. These were the rights which could be exercised by an unreformed Chamber. These are the rights which we are now exercising, and for which we are criticised. The reduced delaying power under the 1949 Act could in this case, if exercised, amount to a period not exceeding six months in delaying this particular measure, and I do not think this is reasonable.

My Lords, in 1968 the White Paper on House of Lords reform was produced by the Labour Government of that day. I was a member of the full committee under the chairmanship of the then noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, and of the Sub-Committee—there were three—which studied the matter in very great detail. We dealt with this question of the Lords' powers with some care, and we obtained full agreement in the Committee. The conclusion was put forward with cogency by the then Lord President of the Council, the late Mr. Richard Crossman, who said in November 1968: A reformed House given the same powers as the present House would challenge the sovereignty of the House of Commons. If we want a Second Chamber subordinate to the Commons we have to make sure that its powers are exactly attuned to this purpose. The Labour Government of that time accepted that even for a reformed House a period of delay of six months from the date of disagreement of both Houses, with a carry-over if necessary to the next Session or even the next Parliament, was a reasonable period of time. This is what we shall be doing if we cannot resolve the disagreement between the two Houses. Those Members of your Lordships' House who have any worry about the need for a Second Chamber might read the philosophy of Richard Crossman, in that remarkable speech where he described to the House of Commons how he went through the various stages and ended by believing in a reformed House with this sort of power of six months' delay.

Therefore, I would hope that the Government will recognise that these are not wrecking tactics; that this is not the deliberate disruption of a Government's legislative programme for Party advantage. It is a sincere attempt to uphold the protection of a fundamental freedom by bringing it within the law, and to us on these Benches it is a matter of supreme principle; it is not a matter of judgment, it is a matter of principle in which we sincerely believe. It is the kind of issue which may well arise in different forms in the future, and, in my view, whenever it does this House should exercise the powers bestowed upon it by the Statute which defines our functions and responsibilities.

5.43 p.m.

Lord SHINWELL

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Byers, has demonstrated with his usual clarity that every effort that has been made in the past to reform the House of Lords has led only to the result that your Lordships' House has remained the same. But that is not the issue before your Lordships' House tonight. The issue—apart from all the specious arguments, the irrelevancies, the ambiguities and the distortions—is a very simple one. It is whether your Lordships are prepared to accept the decision of another place. It is not even a dispute as between Members of your Lordships' House on the Opposition Benches and the Government; it is a dispute between Members of your Lordships' House on the other side. If they decide to implement all their principles and sincere convictions, about which we have heard a great deal, and resolve to go against the decision taken in another place by, according to the evidence, a substantial majority, that is the issue.

My Lords, in almost every dialogue that has emerged on this subject of industrial relations the issue of sanctions has be devilled the judgment of all concerned, both employers and trade unions. In the time of the Wilson Government from 1966 to 1970 an effort was made to introduce an incomes policy. That policy, with some exceptions, would have been quite acceptable to the majority of trade unions in the country if it had not included the issue of penal sanctions against trade unions in the event of some issue arising as between those who were on the shop floor and the employers. I can recall an incident that occurred when I happened to occupy the position of Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

The late Mr. Ness Edwards, who was the chairman of the trade union group in the House of Commons, came to me one evening, very late, and asked whether I would see the Prime Minister and intervene on behalf of the trade union group —I was not a member of that group, not being a sponsored trade union member—and plead with the Prime Minister to withdraw the penal clauses which were embodied in the legislation. I saw the Prime Minister, and without going into details I can only repeat what he said: we must have reserve powers, by which he meant to impose sanctions if and when it was found to be necessary. I reported back to Mr. Ness Edwards and his two vice-chairmen. As a result, the dispute within the Labour Party at the time between a large section of the membership and the Government became even more turbulent, and in the event the proposed legislation was abandoned, with the results that are known only too well.

It has now emerged again. I ventured, when my noble friend Lord Houghton was speaking, to ask a simple question. It was this: on the assumption that the question of a charter had never emerged —and, of course, we know it was intended as a compromise, quite sincerely submitted by my noble friend Lord Houghton—what would have remained so far as sanctions were concerned? The answer was in evidence this afternoon from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, because he propounded the law on the subiect. In effect, what he said amounted to this: if a dispute occurred as a result of the expulsion of a member from a trade union, that person had a right to invoke the Common Law and ask the courts to decide.

There have been cases of that sort that have come before the courts and compensation has been awarded. The Common Law propounded this afternoon by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, still remains the law of the land and can be invoked at any time as and when it is regarded as essential. But what has happened has been an endeavour to produce some kind of discrimination as between the union of journalists and, for example, the union of miners or the steel-workers or general labourers or builders. Frankly, I can see no distinction whatever. It is perfectly true that journalists may be spread all over the world—to use the language of the noble and learned Lord—and they may be in Washington, or in Cairo, or in the West End of London or the East End, or in Fleet Street, or in the various habitats they occupy from time to time. But they arc an organisation, they are a group and they have an affinity, and as such can be recognised.

Then emerges the question of the freedom of the Press. I want to ask a question about this matter of the freedom of the Press. Let us assume that the Press of this country, instead of being politically motivated by capitalist owners, had been politically motivated by the trade unions and the Labour Party, would there have been so much dialogue about the freedom of the Press, retaining that freedom and permitting editors to utilise the services even of militant authors, writers and journalists? Why, of course not. By the freedom of the Press we simply mean that the newspapers of the country, taken by and large—there happens to be only one exception, I never read it, unlike some right reverend Prelates— say what they like, do what they like, but in the main denounce the Labour Party, denounce the trade union movement, single out trade union leaders and Labour politicians to ther detriment. That is what is meant by the freedom of the Press. I do not want to interfere with the freedom of the Press. Let them write what they like, let them say what they like, but I misunderstand what is meant by the freedom of the Press.

The journalists of the country, whether editors or sub-editors, and their associates, are no more entitled to privileges than miners or building workers, or any person who works on the shop floor. On the other hand, I want to make my position perfectly clear as regards the editors of capitalist newspapers or capitalist periodicals. I would no more interfere with the right of an editor to decide what appears in his periodical or newspaper than I would deny the right of a managing director associated with an industrial establishment to declare how his factory should be managed. I believe in participation by the workers, but not to that extent. The editor of a newspaper must have the essential right—I do not call it a privilege—because of his position to produce in his newspaper or periodical anything which, in his judgment, is regarded as proper. That is my position.

I dismiss at once the specious arguments used by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and I shall tell the House why. On several occasions, not only this evening but in the course of previous debates, he used the word, "We". He speaks on behalf of "We" Who did he mean? The newspaper proprietors. That is what he meant. If he was speaking on behalf of the newspaper proprietors, the freedom of the Press issue is totally specious and irrelevant.

The final issue remains, and it is this: the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, said, "We must rely on our principle. We have sincere convictions" I agree. On a previous occasion I ventured to say to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, the Leader of the Opposition, "If you denounce the Labour Government and are in opposition to those in another place, you must act according to your convictions." What will be the consequence? In the course of a few months the Bill will return to your Lordships' House and we shall again go through the same dialogue. I shall not plead with the other side, as my noble friend the Leader of the House did, that they should refrain from opposing the decision of another place. I merely venture to point out the consequences, and this is not associated with any threat or any intimidation. I dismiss all that. If the House of Lords is to be reformed one day, or if there is a demand for its abolition, it will have to be dealt with in a commonsense, logical, and pragmatic fashion, so we shall leave that for the time being.

Let the other side act according to their convictions. We on this side will act as sincerely, and in accordance with our principles and convictions. Then when the issue is joined tonight a decision will be reached contrary to what my noble friend the Leader of the House desires. There will be delay, and we shall come back to it with the same dialogue, arguments, convictions and principles, but in the end what is to happen? Nothing more than this: a delay of a few months. But the Opposition in the House of Lords will have the right to say, "We acted according to our convictions. We did what we regarded as what was right, and we defied the House of Commons." That is all. I am bound to put it this way, I shall bear it with my customary fortitude.

5.57 p.m.

Lord DOUGLASS of CLEVELAND

My Lords, I want to make two brief comments. I do not want to repeat arguments that I have used in this House previously. This afternoon the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, disposed of Lord Goodman's arguments if he did not dispose of the whole of his Amendment. But while this debate was taking place it occurred to me that time and expedience have disposed of Lord Hail-sham's arguments. His argument is that after you have arrived at agreement between employers and employees, you must then give it legal force in order for it to be acceptable to the country.

What has been our experience on this? I hope that the Front Bench will listen to me, because the argument that has just occurred to me I do not believe has been put forward before. The 1971 trade union Act gave employers and trade unionists the right, having made an agreement, to give it the force of law. That is what they were privileged to do under the 1971 Act. In all the years since that Act was passed not one employer or trade unionist gave the agreement legal enforcement. There is a lesson to be learned from this that is, that in this country an agreement arrived at between a trade union and an employer is invariably agreed to. It may be difficult to arrive at but, once an agreement is come to and agreed to, in the years since that Act was passed no employer has asked for it to have the force of law behind it, and for very good reasons.

Once one starts to put the law behind an agreement, one then brings in the lawyers and all the interpretations that have gone into making that agreement. When employers and trade unionists have arrived at an agreement and they interpret it they do not ask, "What did we put in here or there?" or, "Should there be a comma or semi-colon there?" They simply ask, "What was the spirit of this agreement?" I remind noble Lords that many discussions have been going on among trade unions, employers and Government through Neddy and that, through this medium, they arc now producing a code of practice dealing with the £6 limit on wage increases, which is designated to prevent inflation escalating.

In those discussions we have the employers, the trade unionists and the Government, but we do not have the Opposition. I therefore feel a little sourness creeping into our discussions, because the Opposition are recognising the success that is being achieved with this code of practice or code of conduct in trade union negotiations through the medium of Neddy, the only instrument of consultation which the last Conservative Government left on the Statute Book.

I can sum up my remarks by saying that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, has disposed of the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. I am sorry to have to say that, because I always wanted to carry the Cross-Benchers with me, for I believe that when we are dealing with them we are dealing with people who are objective. The Liberals are also objective but not quite to the same degree as the Cross-Benchers because they have their own axes to grind in the political world. In any event, if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, has disposed of the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and events and history have disposed of the argument for putting legislative force behind agreements arrived at between trade unionists and employers, we have thereby disposed of all the arguments against the speech of my noble friend Lord Shepherd.

Lord GORE-BOOTH

My Lords—

Several Noble Lords

Order!

Lord GORE-BOOTH

I am sorry, but on this occasion I intend to exercise my right of free speech, my Lords. That is what this debate is about. Did the noble Earl, Lord Arran, rise to speak?

6.3 p.m.

The Earl of ARRAN

My Lords, I wish to add a brief postscript to what my noble Leader said a few minutes ago. I must first declare my interest, in that I am a director of the Daily Mail and General Trust and I am a journalist. I have only one point to make, but it is an important one; not only is it the freedom of the Press which is at risk, it is the freedom of speech. If we get a Press which sings the same song—and there is a real risk of this—then people will tend to say the same thing and it will be difficult, even dangerous, not to follow the Party line. We saw it in Nazi Germany, where the Press slavishly followed the Nazi newspaper and the freedom of the Press was systematically eroded. The most famous example was the bringing into line of the Frankfurter Zeitung, possibly the best newspaper in Europe, and with that erosion went the same erosion of freedom of speech; no one dared say a word against Hitler and the Nazis.

I will not go so far as to say that no one will dare say anything opposed to the late unlamented Trotsky, Marx and Lenin, but the doctrine according to these saints will, in the end, come to be regarded as Holy Writ, and to deny the doctrine, privately or openly, will be considered blasphemy punishable by im- prisonment or death. Quite simply, we shall have a police State, and that, I am sure, is something none of us wants, particularly the Secretary of State. Your Lordships may think me fanciful, but it is because I do not want to see Britain turned into a one-Party State in which no one will dare to speak his or her own mind that I am so strongly a supporter of the noble Lord's Amendment.

6.5 p.m.

Lord GORE-BOOTH

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Earl, Lord Arran. I did not see until the last moment that he had risen to speak and, when I saw that he had, I gave way immediately. I, too, will be brief and, as the noble Lord, Lord Douglass of Cleveland, has been polite to the Cross-Benchers I should like personally to reciprocate to him. I wish also to make the point that there is some talk about the role played by your Lordships' House in this matter. It is right that the public, the media and the other place should note that throughout this discussion, if one looks at the records of voting, these Benches, each noble Lord making up his own mind, has with practically no exception shown a sympathy in the voting with the general line of thought presented by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. We are not newspaper publishers, we have no axe to grind and practically all of us have no direct interest in this matter; but we have found that there is something exceptional about the situation which has in general made us vote for his ideas. This was much better expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Byers, than I could possibly express it; it is that this is not a distinction between union and union. It is the distinction between the subject of people who give services or who build anything from a half-million ton tanker to a pin and the exercise of words, thoughts and ideas. That is the real distinction and why there is a worry, and why many of us have a feeling that one man's penal action is another man's safety net.

Why should we worry about this now? That is a question which nobody has attempted to answer. I think the first answer is a national one, the fact that we have had a scare. Thank goodness! it has gone, but we have had it. Secondly, if one looks around the world in countries in which there is an attempt to suppress part of an opinion or the whole of it what one sees in common is that the people who wish to do that make for freedom of expression as their first target, whether by infiltration or anything else. To illustrate what I mean I need not go further or come nearer than Portugal. Therefore, there seems to some of us to be a problem which might arise with great suddenness—I am almost sure it will not arise in this country—and then, perhaps, a general Common Law, legal safety net would not be a bad thing to have. Whenever the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, talks about this matter I feel one kinship with him, which I can perhaps put in a sentence: this is a situation in which I would say compassionately that diplomacy will still go on and on, and we should try to get it right together. I hope that politics has the inspiration and the machinery to do that.

6.8 p.m.

Lord CARRINGTON

My Lords, I do not know whether I correctly sense the feeling of the House, but after many months of debate on this subject perhaps your Lordships might feel that we have reached a moment when we should make a final decision. I apologise for intervening in this discussion because I have not so far intervened on this Bill; my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone needs no help from me and, indeed, I do not intend this evening to speak about the merits of the Amendment standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, or about my noble and learned friend's Amendment, except to say that there are those of us in this House who feel that the freedom of the Press in its widest sense —the freedom and the right to publish and to contribute—is something which is overwhelmingly important, particularly at this moment when in other countries we see so many basic freedoms disappearing, and when even here institutions and customs which hitherto we have taken for granted are beginning to be questioned and attacked.

This does not seem to be a matter which should divide the House on Party political lines. We have to decide this evening whether, in the opinion of this House, the Government proposals as they now are adequately ensure the free Press which all of us wish to see maintained. There are those who think that they do. There are those, among them myself, who think that they do not, and my view is shared, as the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, just pointed out, by many of your Lordships in all parts of this House.

It seems right, therefore, that, on this occasion and on an issue of such importance, we should also look at the constitutional position of your Lordships' House. There has been a great deal of talk, as there always is, in the Press, in another place and by some of your Lordships on previous occasions, of a constitutional crisis should the House decide to insist on these Amendments. This is to misunderstand the Constitution and to misconceive the purpose of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949. The purpose of those two Acts was not to prevent your Lordships' House from expressing an opinion on the legislation which came before it from another place, but to put a term on the delay which it could impose if it rejected or amended such legislation. Nobody now disputes that, in the final analysis, the will of the House of Commons—the elected House—must prevail. The point of disagreement over the years has been as to how long that delaying power should be.

The Parliament Act of 1949, on which work was begun in 1947, expressly gave this House—composed as it then was of no Life Peers other than the Law Lords and the Bishops—the power of one year's delay from the time of the Second Reading of a Bill in another place. It was a Labour Government which thought that 12 months was the right period. During those debates, which I remember very well, as does the noble Lord, Lord Byers, though he was in a different geographical location then, it was agreed by the then Government—though not by the Opposition which thought the period too short —that 12 months was the minimum which should be given to a Second Chamber if it were to be effective.

As did the noble Lord, Lord Byers, I looked the other day at some of the debates in 1947. I came across the following passage from Mr. Chuter Ede, speaking on the Second Reading of the Parliament Bill on 11th November 1947. I believe that what he said is worth noting: Where the House of Lords rejects a Bill, drastically amends a Bill so that it is unacceptable to this House, or merely postpones consideration of it, we feel that, while there is a Second Chamber such as the present one, there should be a guarantee to them that, before such a Bill is passed over their heads, the House will consider either their reasons for drastic amendment or the causes, if we can discover them, which led to their dilatory action by requiring the two Sessions and the 12 months after the first Second Reading of the Bill in this House. We do not deny that the House of Lords, even as at present constituted, has certain duties and rights as a revising Chamber. We think that these are best discharged by the machinery I have just described. We think that their power of a suspensary veto is adequately met if they have 12 months instead of 24 before the Bill can be passed over their heads."—[Official Report, 11/11/47.) It will be seen from this quotation and that read out by the noble Lord, Lord Byers, that there is no constitutional impropriety and no constitutional crisis can arise if the House uses the powers which it has and which it was given by Parliament under a Labour Government. But that is not really the issue. Those who talk about a constitutional crisis are saying that they do not believe it right that a House composed as we are should delay legislation passed by the elected House. There are some of us sitting in this House—and the noble Lord is nodding—who did our very best to alter the composition of this House and the Party balances in it. Maybe what we proposed was wrong, but it would certainly have removed most of the objections which are felt about the House as it is at present constituted. In any event, those proposals were passed by an overwhelming majority of your Lordships. They failed to succeed because of the opposition of the House of Commons. Ironically enough, as the noble Lord, Lord Byers has said, that opposition was skilfully and notably led by Mr. Foot, the author of the Bill which we are now discussing. It is not our fault that we arc unreformed. Mr. Foot talks about the impropriety of an unelected House challenging the Commons, but he and others who feel like him must make up their mind what they want. Do they want a single Chamber Government? If they do, I, for one, would view that with the gravest possible misgivings. Nor do I think it possible that a single Chamber could adequately manage the legislation brought forward by any Government. I am quite sure that Mr. Foot and those others do not want an elected Second Chamber. Nor do I think that many other Members of another place would wish it, for an elected Second Chamber would have to be given more power and not less, and that increased power would be at the expense of the House of Commons.

What, then, are we left with? We are left with a House composed roughly as it is or entirely of appointees. Who am I, as a hereditary Peer, to make a decision as to which is better? As hereditary Peers, we are the children of our fathers. Life Peers are the children of patronage. I doubt whether either of us are much worse or much better just for those reasons but, unless the House is to be elected, there is no other way of altering our composition.

Can it then properly be argued that, because our own reform was rejected by the House of Commons, we cannot now do our constitutional duty and use those powers specifically given to us by a Labour Government in our unreformed condition? In our system we have hitherto taken the view that the will of the elected House must in the end prevail, but that there should be a second House which has the opportunity—in rare cases, perhaps—to enforce a delay in which there can be a reassessment by Government, by Parties and by the people of this country of the rights or wrongs of an issue. If now we decide to use that very limited power, we are not thwarting the will of the people for, in so far as it is represented by the House of Commons, it will and must prevail in a comparatively short time. We shall be using those powers for the purpose for which they were given to us—that is, as an opportunity for further consultation, for second thoughts before this legislation inevitably reaches the Statute Book and because we did not want the Second Chamber to be associated with what the Government are doing.

If one studies the record of this House, it will be seen that we have not been unsuccessful in these last years under Governments of both Parties in amending legislation for the better, most notably in the present Bill. The Government rightly take credit—and my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham drew attention to this—for the fact that they have moved a long way since the introduction of the Bill into this House. As they put it, they have made a number of concessions. That is right, they have. But, if there had been no Second Chamber, no Opposition in this House, no noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, no noble Lord, Lord Goodman, no noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, there would have been no opportunity for the Government to have made these concessions or to have altered the Bill in a way which they themselves think an improvement, for the Bill would have been on the Statute Book months ago and would have been there un-amended and without even the safeguards which the Government themselves now propose.

The House has amply proved its value, but I do not believe the Government have gone far enough. As I have said, there are certain issues in our national life which, it seems to me, are of paramount importance, and high among those is the unfettered freedom of the Press. No doubt there are those who say, and who have said, and who will say, that if we are to maintain our position on this issue then we shall be abolished, or there will be a radical revision of our powers and composition. We have already heard such talk from Members in another place. My Lords, so be it. What would be the rallying cry?—"Abolish the House of Lords, it is trying to maintain the freedom of the Press". I should not have thought that a slogan which would get the ordinary people of this country to the barricades, or your Lordships to the lamp-posts. It would be a curious sight to see those two tricoteurs, Messrs. Short and Foot, needles clicking, waiting at the foot of the scaffold, for the first tumbrel to arrive, in which we should see seated side-by-side the Prime Minister's solicitor and the Chairman of the Arts Council!

My Lords, what then is the advice that I should seek to give your Lordships? I cannot pretend that of the two Amendments I do not prefer that of my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone for the reasons he has given. Yet I venture to think, for two reasons, that we should perhaps support the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. If one looks at the Division Lists in this House and in another place, there can be no doubt that the noble Lord's Amendment has a broader spectrum of approval (wrongly, as I think) than does that of my noble friend; and on an issue of this kind I think it important that there should be a wide cross-section of your Lordships voting. It should be made plain to the Government, and to anybody interested in this matter, that this issue has cut across Party political divisions.

Secondly, having listened to the speeches of the Government, and of the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, on the last occasion we debated this matter a week ago, it seems to me that they feel that the Amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has less objection in their view than that of my noble and learned friend. Thus perhaps if we on this side, in a spirit of conciliation, were prepared not to press our Amendment we would hope that, even at this late hour, the Government would think again and would be prepared to accept the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. For the rest the only advice which I would dare to give your Lordships is that you should do what you think is right.

Lord SHEPHERD

My Lords, it may be that the only thing I have in common with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is that we share affection for one famous pop singer, Dame Vera Lynn, in that "Now is the Hour" As to whether it is a question of saying "Goodbye", perhaps only events will provide the answer. I did not come to this debate this afternoon to talk about a constitutional crisis. Any noble Lord who looks at my speech, which I delivered at rather great length, will not see one word about constitutional crisis. I have never questioned either that your Lordships' House has not rights under the 1949 and the 1911 Parliament Acts; nor have I questioned at any time the motives of any noble Lord in taking a different view from that of the Government. I have sought throughout to make it clear that we were all united in the need to find some way in which the security and freedom of the Press could be secured.

I do not know of any other piece of legislation on which so much work has been done outside this Chamber to find an agreement. I must say this to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. I deeply resent his attitude today, particularly regarding a certain meeting which took place last night. In the light of what the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said—that the Government had perhaps acted in an underhand, possibly, dishonourable way—I should say this. An approach was made by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. My noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor agreed immediately that a meeting should take place, and a meeting did take place. It is very much to be regretted that my noble and learned friend had to go to another place for a State occasion where his presence as Lord Chancellor is demanded and required; the noble and learned Lord knows to what I am referring. However, it was agreed in the light of the question of timing that those officials who were at that meeting should go to see the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and his friends. It was made clear to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, that those officials were not in any position whatsoever to negotiate. They went there to explore, to see whether—because at one stage it looked as if the tide had been moving and that the sand was shifting—there was a possibility of agreement; and the officials went.

The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, is not right to suggest that he thought last night that there was a proposal made; that one could be accepted, only to be withdrawn. All I can say—and I will leave it at this—is that many negotiations which go on in relation to all forms of legislation in this House and in another place are conducted outside this House. In my view they should always be conducted on a confidential basis and what is said should not be disclosed in this House, because if one once departs from that principle, then the whole spirit and the whole purpose of negotiation (which is so valuable) is removed—

Lord GOODMAN

My Lords, I must intervene at this point, because there is one very relevant factor which has been left out. Is it not the case that those officials brought with them an official Government Amendment drafted by the Government for my consideration? Are they seriously suggesting that if that was not a firm offer—which they made it plain it was not—it was a very firm proposal on which hopes might well have been roused and acceptance by me would have seen agreement on the part of everyone concerned? Was that proposal not withdrawn the following morning?

Lord SHEPHERD

My Lords, there was no proposal made to the noble Lord. There had been various discussions and we sought to see whether there were ways of meeting the point at issue. Since we have Parliamentary draftsmen, we sought to put down on paper what might be a solution. But it was never an offer, and the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, to the best of my memory was made aware of that situation. But let us leave it at that. With regard to the constitutional position of your Lordships' House, I suggest that this is a matter which we can discuss at greater length on another occasion. I suspect that a great deal will depend on how your Lordships' House reacts when the Bill is reintroduced in the next Session.

I want to conclude on this matter. I hope that noble Lords will not look lightly—as I suspect they may, judging from some of the speeches today—on how the reactions of this House will be seen outside. I believe that this will have very serious repercussions on the general spirit which is now emerging on all sides of industry—the trade unions the employers and the Government. I do not believe that noble Lords opposite —whether it be through ignorance, prejudice or otherwise—have not been prepared to accept it, and very few have sought to meet the case. I understand the great difficulty of the noble Lords opposite in the light of the speech made last Friday. But with regard to the noble Lord, Lord Denham, I must say that I have heard many of his speeches in your Lordships' House, about the great benefit of hereditary Peers; that they bring a great detachment, that perhaps they ease the political pressures that may be placed upon the Parties in your Lordships' House. The noble Lord has convinced me on occasion, but I suspect that this afternoon he will remove any doubt which I may have had. However, this has been a debate conducted in good spirit. I hope that the repercussions will not be as grave as I believe they will be, but nobody can say that your Lordships' House proceeds on a course without having been warned, and without being fully aware of the consequences.

6.31 p.m.

On Question, Whether the said Motion shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 86: Not-Contents. 186.

CONTENTS
Allen of Fallowfield, L.	Greene of Harrow Weald, L.	Morris of Kenwood, L.
Arwyn, L.	Greenwood of Rossendale, L.	Noel-Buxton, L.
Balogh, L.	Hale, L.	Paget of Northampton, L.
Bernstein, L.	Hall, V.	Pannell, L.
Beswick, L.	Halsbury, E.	Pargiter, L.
Birk, B.	Hanworth, V.	Peddie, L.
Blyton, L.	Harris of Greenwich, L.	Phillips, B.
Brock way, L.	Henderson, L.	Pitt of Hampstead, L.
Buckinghamshire, E.	Houghton of Sowerby, L.	Popplewell, L.
Burton of Coventry, B.	Hoy, L.	Ritchie-Calder, L.
Champion, L.	Hughes, L.	Rusholme, L.
Chorley, L.	Jacques, L.	Sainsbury, L.
Clifford of Chudleigh, L.	Jacobson, L.	Serota, B.
Collison, L.	Janner, L.	Shepherd, L. (L. Privy Seal.)
Crook, L.	Kirkhill, L.	Shinwell, L.
Crowther-Hunt, L.	Leatherland, L.	Slater, L.
Cudlipp, L.	Lee of Asheridge, B.	Stedman, B.
Darling of Hillsborough, L.	Lee of Newton, L.	Stewart of Alvechurch, B.
Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.	Llewelyn-Davies, L.	Stow Hill, L.
Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.	Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller.]	Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]
Douglas of Barloch, L.		Strang, L.
Douglass of Cleveland, L.	Lloyd of Hampstead, L.	Wallace of Campsie, L.
Elwyn-Jones, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Lovell-Davis, L.	Wallace of Coslany, L.
Energlen, L.	Lyons of Brighton, L.	White, B.
Fisher of Camden, L.	MacLeod of Fuinary, L.	Wigg, L.
Gaitskell, B.	Maelor, L.	Winterbottom, L.
Gardiner, L.	Maybray-King, L.	Wise, L.
Geddes of Epsom, L.	Melchett, L.	Wootton of Abinger, B.
Goronwy-Roberts, L.	Milner of Leeds, L.	Wynne-Jones, L.
NOT-CONTENTS
Aberdare, L.	Clwyd, L.	Grantchester, L.
Airedale, L.	Coleraine, L.	Greenway, L.
Allerton, L.	Cork and Orrery, E.	Grenfell, L.
Alport, L.	Cottesloe, L.	Gridley, L.
Amherst, E.	Cowley, E.	Grimston of Westbury, L.
Amherst of Hackney, L.	Craigavon, V.	Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.
Amory, V.	Crawshaw, L.
Amulree, L.	Croft, L.	Hankey, L.
Armstrong, L.	Cross, V.	Harcourt, V.
Arran, E.	Cullen of Ashbourne, L.	Harmar-Nicholls, L.
Ashbourne, L.	Davidson, V.	Harvey of Tasburgh, L.
Auckland, L.	de Clifford, L.	Henley, L.
Balerno, L.	Denbigh, E.	Hood, V.
Banks, L.	Denham, L.	Hylton-Foster, B.
Barber, L.	Devonshire, D.	Inglewood, L.
Barnby, L.	Drogheda, E. [Teller.]	Jellicoe, E.
Barrington, V.	Drumalbyn, L.	Kemsley, V.
Beaumont of Whitley, L.	Dundonald, E.	Killearn, L.
Belhaven and Stenton, L.	Ebbisham, L.	Kimberley, E.
Belstead, L.	Eccles, V.	Kindersley, L.
Berkeley, B.	Ellenborough, L.	Kinnaird, L.
Birdwood, L.	Elles, B.	Lauderdale, E.
Bledisloe, V.	Elliot of Harwood, B.	Lindsey and Abingdon, E.
Bourne, L.	Elton, L.	Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.
Braye, L.	Erskine of Rerrick, L.	Long, V.
Brecon, L.	Evans of Hungershall, L.	Lucas of Chilworth, L.
Bridgeman, V.	Exeter, M.	Lyell, L.
Broadbridge, L.	Falkland, V.	Lytton, E.
Brock, L.	Falmouth, V.	Mackie of Benshie, L.
Brooke of Cumnor, L.	Ferrers, E.	Macleod of Borve, B.
Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.	Ferrier, L.	Malmesbury, E.
Broughshane, L.	Fletcher, L.	Mancroft, L.
Burton, L.	Fraser of Kilmorack, L.	Mansfield, E.
Byers, L.	Gage, V.	Margadale, L.
Camoys, L.	Gibson, L.	Marley, L.
Campbell of Croy, L.	Glenkinglas, L.	Massereene and Ferrard, V.
Carrington, L.	Goodman, L.	Merrivale, L.
Chalfont, L.	Gore-Booth, L.	Mersey, V.
Chelwood, L.	Goschen, V.	Meston, L.
Clitheroe, L.	Gowrie, E.	Middleton, L.
Monck, V.	Redesdale, L.	Swansea, L.
Monk Bretton, L.	Rhodes, L.	Swaythling, L.
Monson, L.	Rhyl, L.	Tenby, V.
Mowbray and Stourton, L.	Robertson of Oakridge, L.	Terrington, L.
Moyne, L.	Robson of Kiddington, B.	Teviot, L.
Netherthorpe, L.	Rockley, L.	Thorneycroft, L.
Newall, L.	Rosslyn, E.	Thurlow, L.
Northchurch, B.	Rothermere, V.	Tranmire, L.
Nugent of Guildford, L.	Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.	Trevelyan, L.
Ogmore, L.	St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]	Tweedsmuir, L.
O'Hagan, L.	St. Davids, V.	Verulam, E.
O'Neill of the Maine, L.	Sandford, L.	Vickers, B.
Onslow, E,	Sandys, L.	Vivian, L.
Orr-Ewing, L.	Sempill, Ly.	Wade, L.
Pender, L.	Sharples, B.	Wakefield of Kendal, L.
Penrhyn, L.	Skelmersdale, L.	Ward of North Tyneside, B.
Perth, E.	Somers, L.	Ward of Whitley, V.
Piercy, L.	Stamp, L.	Wigoder, L.
Pike, B.	Strathcarron, L.	Windlesham. L.
Porritt, L.	Strathclyde, L.	Wolverton, I..
Radnor, E.	Strathspey, L.	Worcester, Bp.
Rankeillour, L.	Suffield, L.	Young B.
Reading, M.

On Question, Motion agreed to.