LORDS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 30 October 1975)

§ Lord BESWICK
My Lords, I beg to move that the House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 59 and 60 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 61. The Reason which motivated the other place in disagreeing with the Amendments we put forward was that they would unduly restrict the information which would be given to employees. The point at issue is whether it would be a ground for withholding information if its disclosure would cause substantial injury to the undertaking or a substantial number of its employees, or simply injury.
My noble friend Lord Melchett dealt with this, and he explained that the word "substantial" was necessary to ensure that disclosure was not prevented by some insignificantly small injury. I think he had a discussion with the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, about this. It is the Government's view that the power should be capable of being used to require disclosures in circumstances when they result in some injury to the undertaking, or in some injury to some employees. There may be circumstances in which this is justified, where the gains from disclosure of information outweigh the injury the disclosure would cause. I understand the point which the noble Lord was putting forward earlier, but I hope that on reflection he will feel that the anxiety he expressed about this would probably not be realised in practice. I beg to move.

Lord CAMPBELL of CROY
My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will not regard it as any discourtesy that I did not reply to the points he made at the end of the last debate. I had already 661 exhausted my right to speak on that set of Amendments; also the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, had graciously allowed me to intervene two or three times in the interests of clarification of a particular situation, so that 1 could not try to answer his points.
On these Amendments and the Reason given, I should like to remind your Lordships that the proposals of the Government for a system of disclosure of information envisage that the very large majority of companies will be acting voluntarily; it is only where a company sees objections with regard to certain information that the compulsory system is engaged. It is clear to us—this applies only to certain manufacturing companies —that the number of companies likely to get involved with the procedure and to have their case considered by the advisory committee is likely to be only one or two a year. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, said in our earlier stages that he hoped there might be none. So I think we must recall that the system proposed in the Bill envisages most of the information being passed on a voluntary system, and that the element of compulsion which is being introduced—which is, of course, a very important new element—will come in on only one or two, or a handful of cases a year.
So we now turn to the question of injury or substantial injury. We regret that the Government propose to reverse the Amendments which we made in your Lordships' House. We do not believe that this will give British industry confidence in this new system of disclosure, because it means that when they see objection to passing information voluntarily they have then to prove not just that there will be injury to the company or to the employees—because that is where the word "substantial" had been removed—but substantial injury. Then it is left to the Minister to decide what "substantial" injury means.
I will not rehearse the debates we had in your Lordships' House at the earlier stages as to what "substantial" could mean, but we regret that this change should now be made. Companies could understand that if they had to prove under the procedure laid down in the Bill that injury would be cause to them, or the employees of a company, then they could go forward and make their case, but trying 662 to prove substantial injury, whatever that may be, will be difficult; simply to prove injury will be difficult. While I do not suggest to my noble friends that we should resist this, I think the leaving out of "substantial", which is what we were suggesting, would have been a great improvement; it would then have meant that companies could come forward knowing that they had to prove that injury would be suffered by the company or employees, and they would have a good chance of proving their case before the Minister and the advisory committee.

§ Lord BESWICK
My Lords, I wonder whether I may put to the noble Lord the point that the Secretary of State or the Minister referred to in the Bill has an element of discretion here. He will have to consider whether the damage, if there be such, to a small number of people is outweighed by the benefits to the majority. I am sure the noble Lord will take this point into account.