LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 16 November 1976)

§ Lord CARR of HADLEY
My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 23 but propose the following Amendment in lieu thereof, No. 24A: Page 9, line 16, at end insert ("or professional organisation and any other independent trade union as defined in section 30(1) of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 which appears to the Corporation to represent a substantial proportion of its employees or of those of its wholly-owned subsidiaries"). There is an error in the Amendment as printed, due entirely to the very great rush in which it had to be prepared. Thefirst three words as printed "or professional organisation" are from the Amendment which I am not seeking to insist upon, and it was not meant that they should be included in the Amendment which I am moving. As I said, the error is due entirely to the tremendous rush under which not only Members of this House but the staff of the House have been 1182 working, and I am sure that we all understand how these errors occur. I am not saying where the blame lies because it may well lie with me and my noble friends.
I wanted to stress that. I also want to stress that the only reason why we did not want to insist on "or professional organisation"was exactly the reason I gave when speaking to an earlier Amendment, when I said that we were genuinely seeking, on this question of enlarging the scale of consultation, to compromise with the views of the Government and the views of the other House. Your Lordships will notice that the wording of Amendment No. 24A is precisely that of the earlier Amendment, No. 14A, and I do not think therefore that I need explain it again. I am extremely disappointed that the Government have not taken this in the spirit in which it was offered, as a genuine attempt to compromise, with our surrendering some of what we believe in order to reach a compromise between the views of the two Houses.
While I assume, as I must, that the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, will repeat what he said on the previous Amendment, may I ask him to give some assurance on this issue? He said in the debate on the previous Amendment that he believed that everybody should have the right—he used the word "right"—to consultation; but that is exactly what people do not have and fear that it is an opportunity they will not be given. If the Government cannot, for reasons good or bad, accept the Amendment, it would be helpful if Lord Melchett on behalf of the Government would give an assurance to all these people that they will in practice have the right to be consulted, as he said earlier, and that this right will not be denied them merely because their legal entitlement to it is not, in the wish of the Government, to be written into the Bill. Such an assurance would help to allay fears, which I hope he believes are genuine, in these industries.

Lord GRAY
My Lords, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, is not proposing to argue, as he appeared to argue 1183 earlier, that by qualifying his use of the words "industrial democracy" with the word "effective" he can justify a suggestion that only the big or favoured battalions should play a part in these processes. I invite him to deny that if a right to be consulted is bestowed, but is bestowed selectively and restrictively as among relevant organisations, that is not merely unjust in this context but gives the lie to the stated democratic intention.

§ Lord MELCHETT
My Lords, in one sense I am not going to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Carr of Hadley, because I do not intend to repeat the speech I made on Amendment No. 14A. I am afraid, however, that I am going to disappoint him in the sense that I am not repeating it because I have nothing new to say in relation to the Government's attitude to Amendment No. 24A—which, as he pointed out, follows No. 14A exactly—but because it is the same as the attitude which I took to No. 14A. However I would certainly like to respond to the particular question which he asked me. As he knows, this is a very difficult subject. It is one on which I have freely acknowledged that there are considerable difficulties, and there are difficulties for all those concerned. There are difficulties for the organising committees and the Corporations, as they will be; there are difficulties for the independent and recognised trade unions, and there arc difficulties for other groups. I do not pretend that anything I am going to say tonight to Lord Carr will make any difference to the fact that those difficulties exist, and all I am likely to do in whatever I say is probably to exacerbate the difficulties, and that is why I shall be careful not to say too much.
I hope Lord Carr will accept that with a difficult industrial relations problem it is not always very helpful to have fears from either side of the House sounded off by people who do not know a great deal about them, and I confess that I am in that position, even if Lord Carr is not. This is a problem which must be sorted out with good will—and I believe that that good will exists—among those actually working in the industries and in the organising committees and the Corporations as they will be. I have no doubt, as I say, that that good will exists and that there is a wish to sort out the problems 1184 that exist, but I am not sure that any particular assurances from me would carry any weight or necessarily help the matter a great deal.
I have said on previous occasions that the Government wish to see everybody working in these industries involved in the consultation process and that has been made perfectly clear. I do not think there is anything more definite I could say that would be very helpful, except to reiterate my view that there is a great deal of good will, and once the Bill has become law and people are faced with settling down to working its provisions I feel sure that some of the fears which have been apparent during the passage of the Bill—and I accept from Lord Carr that they are genuine fears—will be met by the actions of the two Corporations.