Lords Sitting of 13 October 1976

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Oxford.
Lord Grantchester—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

NORTHERN IRELAND: IRA DAMAGE
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, in view of the BBC report on 11th August that £¾ million worth of damage to property and vehicles et cetera had been done in Northern Ireland on that one day by the IRA, what their estimate is of the total amount of like damage done there in the last seven years.
The MINISTER of STATE, NORTHERN IRELAND OFFICE (Lord Melchett): My Lords, when dealing with compensation claims for damage to property it is not possible to distinguish between damage caused by the IRA and that caused by any other unlawful group. The total compensation already paid, together with the estimated amount still to be paid, in respect of damage to property under the Northern Ireland Criminal Injury Acts in the period 1st April 1969 to 30th September 1976 is about £190 million.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him how these repairs or replacements are paid for? If they are paid for by an insurance scheme, who pays the premiums? If it is the United Kingdom Treasury, could I ask the noble Lord whether that sum was included in the Written Answer that his noble friend gave to me on 29th July?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, the sums are paid by the United Kingdom Treasury. I am afraid I could not say whether they were covered in a particular Written Answer without being told what was said in that Answer.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, did I understand the noble Lord to say that he could not give an estimate of the amount of damage which was done by the IRA as opposed to that done by other criminal groups? Is he really saying that it is totally impossible to know what the IRA have done as opposed to what the Ulster Right-Wing terrorists have done? Could he possibly be more forth-coming on that point?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, as the noble Lord will know, under the terms of the legislation governing compensation for damage to property caused by unlawful organisations such as the IRA, the Chief Constable is empowered to issue a certificate that in his opinion—that is, in the Chief Constable's opinion—the act causing the damage was committed maliciously by a person acting on behalf of or in connection with an unlawful organisation. The Act does not require the Chief Constable to attribute the damage to a particular unlawful organisation; and I think it is perfectly clear that to ask the Chief Constable to attempt to do that would, first of all, place a very considerable burden upon him, and secondly, of course, would not always be practicable in a particular instance.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that this particular Question asks for something which it is almost impossible to assess when we look back over the period of time since these troubles first started in Northern Ireland? I think my noble friend has done his best to give an answer in a positive way to the Question which has been asked, and I hope the noble Lord, when he gives it further consideration, will accept that position.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, I am very grateful for what my noble friend has said.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, as it seems that the cost of Northern Ireland is running at about

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£500 million a year, may I ask what Her Majesty's Government have done to inform the inhabitants, not only of this island but of the Republic and the United States of America, inter alia, of the burden that this country is shouldering as a result of that unhappy Province?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, the Government have constantly reiterated the message that the damage which has been caused to Northern Ireland by bombings, fire and so on is enormous, and that message will continue to be conveyed by Government Ministers at every possible opportunity.

SOCIAL SECURITY: DEPENDANTS ABROAD
2.40 p.m.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the total of payments made under the Social Security Acts to alleged "dependants abroad" for the last convenient period.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, records are not kept which would enable the figure which the noble Lord requests to be calculated. The general rules permit payment for a child who is abroad where it has already been in this country and is abroad only temporarily, and for a wife only where she can be regarded as residing with the claimant, which naturally involves evidence that she will rejoin her husband in the foreseeable future.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, is the Minister aware of the grave concern that there is in the country about the possible abuses of the distribution of these social security benefits, and is it not regrettable that there is no record kept of the amount that is paid, along right or wrong lines, to the overseas dependants of immigrants into this country? Because it must add to the large amount which is being continually remitted abroad out of earnings and other receipts of the non-white residents in this country.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will not think I am unkind, but I think he has not taken into account the full implications of my Answer. Furthermore, there is a lot of talk about abuse. The Department has frequently asked for evidence of abuse. It is a very easy allegation to make, but we have no evidence of abuse whatsoever. I have made it perfectly clear that before a claimant can get benefit in respect of a child, that child must be in this country. If it has gone abroad for a temporary period, then the dependant's benefit is paid, but only on the basis that the child is away for a short period. The claim for a wife can be sustained only if the wife is living with the claimant, although if she goes abroad for a period and it is expected that she will return, then benefit is payable; but if she does not return, the benefit is not continued. If the noble Lord asks me how long it is before that happens, it is usually about six months, and if she does not return then the benefit is discontinued. There is really little abuse.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, would the Minister not agree that while the regulations may be interpreted with flexibility it is possible, within that area, for abuses to occur? Coming to the particular point that I have raised, from what the Minister has said, is it to be understood that amounts paid to dependants of immigrants here who are still abroad do not occur at all? If not, how does it come about? So many of the Asians have several wives and a great number of dependants and it must be difficult for the authorities correctly to interpret the applications for payments against the regulations that the noble Lord has said exist.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, what I am saying is that if the wife is not resident in this country then the claimant cannot get benefit for her unless she is going to return to this country in the foreseeable future. I am not going to say that there are not instances here of a man claiming for his wife and she has not been in this country. What I am saying is that in that case he has to satisfy the authorities that she will be coming to this country within a comparatively short space of time. We have an

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overseas department and I can give noble Lords the assurance that they check on this matter.
Lord MURRAY of GRAVESEND: My Lords, could my noble friend say whether the present witch hunt about abuses is out of proportion to the abuses that actually take place? Could he say whether in this specific case mentioned it would cost more for his Department to investigate any abuses than the amount that the abuse costs?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I made the point that there have been complaints from a number of places about abuses. We have asked for evidence of abuses and we have had no evidence at all. I am not going to say that there is no abuse at all; obviously, there is. But in respect of the Question put by the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, I am saying that the abuse is very little for the simple reason that we have a system of checking in relation to this particular matter.
Baroness SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, is it not a fact that we pay benefit for only one dependant wife in the case of a polygamous marriage?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, this is perfectly true; but, even then, she must either be in this country or we have to be satisfied that she will be coming to this country or returning to it within a comparatively short space of time.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm that any wife, even of a polygamous marriage, would be entitled to supplementary benefit—she would get the benefit of the doubt—and that she would not be allowed to go without any benefit at all?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, the noble Baroness has now passed out of the sphere of contributory benefits into the general field of social security benefits, but supplementary benefit is not paid to anyone other than those within the family at that particular time. It cannot be paid to absent wives or children.
Lord HAWKE: My Lords, does the noble Lord's reply apply to the wives of dependants in the Republic of Ireland?
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: Yes, my Lords, it does—to Ireland and Italy, in particular. But, again, it applies only if the dependant is away for a short period.

TRADE WITH RUSSIA
2.48 p.m.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will state for the most recent convenient period the extent of the adverse balance of trade with Russia; and also the figure for the overall balance of trade of Russia with external countries.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the crude trade deficit with Russia in the twelve months ended August 1976 was £385 million. Figures reported to the United Nations show that in 1975 (the latest period available) Russia had an overall deficit on visible trade of £1,648 million.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, those figures take a little digesting. Arising out of that reply, may I ask whether it is to be understood that the exports that go from this country to Russia are mainly against long-term credits and that therefore the change in the value of sterling can he a disadvantage to the importer? Is it right that in the case of timber, which is understood to be the largest item in exports from Russia, those exports are all at negotiable prices, practically indexed prices, so that as sterling falls the importer has to pay more for the import? Could the noble Lord also indicate what, if anything, is being done to try to encourage importers who are swelling this large adverse balance of trade to meet their requirements in other directions where the balance of trade may be more in our favour?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, in answer to part of the noble Lord's supplementary question, much is being done to encourage British exports to the Soviet Union. My honourable friend, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State was recently

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in Moscow, and a great deal is being done at all levels to encourage British exports to the Soviet Union. On the other part of the noble Lord's supplementary question, I am not in a position to give him the answer about timber imports for which he has asked. If he will agree, I will write to him on that point.
Lord BLYTON: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that the imbalance in trade with Russia is very small compared with the balance of trade deficiency for the Common Market of £2,800 million?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, that raises a wider question. The deficit between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union arises largely because the Soviet Union is a supplier of raw materials, particularly timber, and, in recent months, crude oil. It is difficult and not always valuable to make comparisons between the deficits or surpluses between particular pairs of countries.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, are we to understand that the adverse balance of trade with Russia is a demonstration of what is regarded as détente, or does it come within the category of compassion?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, trade is not conducted on political considerations.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, is it not a fact that Sir Harold Wilson, on his last visit to Moscow, extended a large loan to Russia at interest rates which are almost inconceivable when we think of what is happening in this country at the moment? What has happened to the will of the Russians to buy British?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the terms of that line of credit were not out of line with those available to the Soviet Union from our major competitors. The rate at which that line of credit has been taken up has been disappointing. Until this date only some £42 million has been taken up. I can assure the noble Lord that there is a substantial number of Soviet inquiries currently with British companies and the value of those will exceed the total value of the credit agreement.
Lord GISBOROUGH: My Lords, are Her Majesty's Government satisfied with the fact that some of this cheap British loan is being used to build up the Soviet textile industry which is then competing directly with our own hard pressed industry?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the export of textile machinery is a very encouraging part of our exports to the Soviet Union. It is true that they are building up their textile industry, and one has to weigh one aspect of this against the other. It is very desirable that the export of textile machinery should be encouraged and facilitated by this line of credit.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, is it not true that the Soviet Union is now in debt to the West by more than the total of their annual exports to the entire world? Could the noble Lord tell us when it will start repaying these debts to us and to others?
Lord ORAM: Without notice, my Lords, I have no information on the point which the noble Lord raised.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, would my noble friend arrange that we might export to Russia some literature on the subject of democracy?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, possibly my noble friend would consider making a visit to the Soviet Union. I am sure that there his words would be listened to avidly.
Lord BARNBY: My Lords, arising out of the massive adverse balance which the Minister referred to in his original reply, will he see that respect for these figures is given in the appropriate quarter where, admittedly, they are given consideration? Some action has been strongly urged regarding imports from Russia or other countries of goods which are necessarily at prices which reflect a political and not commercial character.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that these figures are constantly being studied. The action I indicated earlier in reply to questions is undertaken on the basis of careful consideration of the facts and figures concerned.

NEB: TENDERING FOR DUBAI PROJECT
2.55 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement as to why the National Enterprise Board together with other members of the consortium of Rio Tinto-Zinc and GEC was unable to compete with the price submitted by the Mitsubishi Electric Company of Japan for the construction of a power station and desalination plant near Dubai.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, the pricing of the British tender for this contract was not a matter for the Government; it was entirely for the commercial judgment of the consortium. This is a highly competitive field and there can be many reasons why tender prices may cover a wide range.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he does not agree that this is a very important contract? Unfortunately we missed it. Can no further arrangements be made to get other partners in the consortium with the National Enterprise Board to further efforts in this direction?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, it was a large contract and I agree with the noble Baroness that it is a great pity the consortium's bid was not accepted. Certainly the National Enterprise Board, on my understanding, would be ready—if their commercial judgment considered it a wise move—to go in for similar consortia in the future.
Lord DOUGLASS of CLEVELAND: My Lords, could we be told the value of this contract and whether delivery dates had any effect on the Japanese success in this direction?
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, as I said in my original Answer, this was not a matter for the Government. I am not aware of the value of the contract under consideration. I have no information
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that would suggest that the delivery date affected the outcome of the tender one way or the other.

DOCK WORK REGULATION BILL
2.57 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Reconstitution of Board as body corporate]:
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 12, leave out ("twelve") and insert ("sixteen").
The noble Lord said: It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak to Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 3 at the same time. They are a series of Amendments. The first proposes to amend the Bill so far as the National Dock Labour Board is concerned. The port users believe that representation, as laid down in the Bill, will be inadequate. The main purpose of the three Amendments is to ensure that additional members may be appointed or nominated to the Board, and that these members will be able to represent interests other than those already represented through the National Joint Council. The dock and cargo handling industry has expanded greatly, not just over the past 30 years but considerably over the past nine or ten years. These Amendments we hope cover users of the ports and other operators in the ports who might become involved in the scope of the Bill as it stands at the moment.
We hope that the membership can be broadened to take in representatives of other workers who would not be covered by the statutory trade union representation. We believe that four representatives are not enough. The classification of dock work, as set out in the Bill, is going to be much broader than was at first apparent. Every effort must be made to remove the

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plain fifty/fifty, port employer/port union structure for the Board, while at the same time ensuring a balanced and even structure. There is, we understand, one recent precedent which has been expressed by the Plowden Inquiry into the electricity supply industry, and we hope that the Government will see their way clear to consider that precedent in relation to the National Dock Labour Board.
We also believe that it is essential to have a substantial number of members of the Board who are knowledgeable of the problems of industry outside the docks and as it will be affected by this Scheme if it comes into operation. At the same time, the powers of these representatives, as laid down in. the Scheme, are not, we believe, as full or as wide as we could hope. There will be many whose jobs and whose businesses will be affected by possible future classification and that is the main reason for moving this series of Amendments.
There are also the workers' representatives, and there will be other unions beyond the docker section of the Transport and General Workers' Union. The impact of the Bill will be much wider than just on port employees and on port employers—indeed all of us here, as laymen, can be considered to be interested in port work and in cargo handling. There will be a great effect on prices, on consumers, on industry and on other workers all over the country. That is why we believe that the interests of employers, of employees and of outside interests should be protected and represented in a Scheme and with a Dock Labour Board of this nature.
We believe also that the local and National dock labour boards should work in harmony, but at all times these boards must reflect interests as may be necessary. We should be grateful to have the Government's view on how the National Dock Labour Board are going to administer the Scheme and whether or not that Board will be able to extend their jurisdiction to other matters which are not immediately apparent in these Amendments, or indeed in the Bill. We believe that this series of three Amendments is very germane to the entire Scheme. It is for those reasons that I beg to move this Amendment.
Lord WIGODER: May I, from these Benches, support Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, to the extent that we believe that it would be desirable that the Board should be larger than is at the moment contemplated. Indeed, it is desirable that the eight members appointed on the nomination of the National Joint Council in subsection (3) of the Bill should not automatically be in a majority as against the other members.
Having said that about Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, may I venture to add a caveat so far as concerns Amendment No. 3, which I hope it will not be considered necessary following upon Amendments Nos. 1 and 2. The caveat is simply that it seems to us that there is a growing, tendency, which ought to be resisted, for national bodies which are appointed to administer a national industry in the national interest to become more and more comprised of members nominated or appointed to represent specific interests rather than the interests of the community as a whole. In the docks industry particularly we have seen in recent years that disciplinary problems have arisen because of the automatic division of the tribunal trying any disciplinary problem into representatives of the employers and representatives of the employees, and in the result they line up automatically on either side, whatever the merits of the specific dispute.
Amendment No. 3 now proposes that there should be four further members of the Board nominated by the CBI and four nominated by the TUC. We venture to suggest that that is undesirable. It is undesirable because the CBI does not represent all the employers any more than the TUC represents the whole of the work force. It is undesirable because neither the CBI nor the TUC is a statutory body. They may or may not exist in their present form in a year or two's time when it is proposed that provisions of this sort should take effect. Without wanting to exaggerate the matter, we suggest that this proposal—for example in subsection (3) of Clause 1—that there should be four members of the Board representing dock employers and four representing the dock workers, and now under Amendment No. 3 four representing the CBI and four representing the TUC is really all

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part of the general drift in these days towards the corporate state which ought to be resisted.
We on these Benches are all in favour of the Secretary of State's consulting in the widest possible direction the widest possible variety of bodies in order to make his appointments to the Board, but we suggest that it is far better, after he has made those appointments, that the members of the Board should consider themselves free to act as they see the proper interest of the Board as a whole and the community as a whole, rather than that they should be there as nominees of a particular organisation or body of people with an obvious duty to promote a sectional interest.
Lord JACQUES: The Government could not accept these Amendments for three reasons. First of all, if these Amendments were carried the Board would be unnecessarily large in number. At the present time the National Dock Labour Board consists of 10 members. We propose under the Bill that there should be four additional members to represent outside interests, making 14. The Amendments would increase that number to 18. There is a consensus of opinion that a Board of this size should have something like 10 to 15 members, and we agree with that consensus. As the noble Lord will be aware, his right honourable friend Mr. Prior led for the Opposition on this Bill in the other place, and in Committee he said at column 26 of the Official Report on the first day:
"We felt on the whole that a Board of 14 was right."
I had my ear to the ground last week and I heard noises from Brighton which told me of the unity of the Party opposite. I hope they will demonstrate that unity by falling behind Mr. Prior on this particular subject.
There is a second reason why we cannot accept this Amendment, and that is that we think it would be unreasonable to the industry. Remember that the primary function of this Board from now will be to administer the Dock Labour Scheme. That is its primary function, and the Scheme is paid for by the industry. Consequently it would be unreasonable to expect the industry to
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accept a minority position on the Board. At the present time the National Joint Council for the industry appoints eight out of 10. Under the Bill they will appoint eight out of 14. Under the Amendment it would be eight out of 18. They would be a minority. I say, quite bluntly, that if I were a trade union leader in the dock industry that would not be acceptable to me, and I suggest to the noble Lord that if he were an employer in the same industry, an employer paying for the Scheme, it would not be acceptable to him.
I come now to the third reason, which has been hinted at by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, and it is the most powerful reason of all. All of us believe that there should be outside representation on this Board and consequently the Bill provides that there shall be four additional members appointed, not on the nomination of the TUC or the CBI but appointed by the Secretary of State after consultation with those bodies. But that is not what the Amendment says. What the Amendment says is that they shall be appointed on the nomination of the CBI and the TUC, which means that they would have discretion. They could appoint people who are already in the industry and there could be no outsiders whatever under this Amendment. Indeed, they would be under pressure to do so, because the industry would be in a minority on the Board and both the CBI and the TUC would be under pressure to appoint people from within the industry so that the industry would have a majority on the Board. I hope with that, the noble Lord will take into account the criticism I made of his Amendment and will consider withdrawing it.
Lord SHINWELL: Before we come to any conclusion about this—because if there is a Division we are expected to take part—can my noble friend say whether those additional members to whom he has just referred would be nominated not by the CBI or the TUC but by the Secretary of State? Could he say who those people will be, where they will come from and who they will represent? Will they, for example, be people representing consumers? Secondly, on the assumption that at some time or other there may be some disputation on the newly appointed Board, perhaps between the TUC and

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CBI representatives or—and perhaps much more likely—between both those bodies and the ten members of the Dock Labour Board, who would adjudicate? Would it be the Secretary of State or would it be done by means of a tribunal?
Lord JACQUES: In answer to the first question, I can only say that the Bill will authorise the Secretary of State to make those appointments, after consultation with the CBI and the TUC. It is the intention of the Secretary of State that two shall come from the workers' side and two from the employers' side outside the industry. Beyond that, I am afraid I cannot go in answering that question. I think the noble Lord had a second question.
Lord SHINWELL: The question was whether, in the event of some disputation arising on this newly appointed body, the matter would be referred to some outside body or whether it would be left to the discretion of the Secretary of State.
Lord JACQUES: I can only have regard to what has happened in the past: in the case of such a dispute, the matter would be referred to the Secretary of State.
Lord SLATER: In rising to support my noble friend in regard to this matter, may I draw his attention to the fact that so far as the nationalised industries are concerned, and particularly the one I come from, mining, in no circumstances would the NUM make nominations as regards anybody coming to sit on the National Coal Board. My noble friend Lord Shinwell knows this to be correct, because he was the Minister who put through the Bill. The Minister could draw the attention of the union to the fact that he would like to enlarge the Board or that the Board ought to be represented by this, that or the other. I think that my noble friend, in answer to this particular issue, should say that the issue is open and that the CBI and the TUC, who are the two parent bodies, one representing the industry and the other representing the workers, is a good line of approach. They ought to be taken into consultation without being made responsible for nominations as to who should serve on the particular Board.
3.15 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I am not quite certain how far we can regard what was done in an industry 30 years ago as relevant to what we are trying to do now. But apart from that, I should like to put one or two points to the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, because he seems to be arguing two separate things. He is saying, first, that this Board has wider responsibilities than just those who are engaged in the immediate industry and the representatives of the National Joint Council, and, on the other hand, that the National Joint Council, representing both sides of the industry, ought to have a majority on the Board. I am not quite sure how far those things are compatible.
The noble Lord referred to the four members to be appointed by the Secretary of State, and he said that two of them would come from the workers' side and two from the employers' side. But that leaves out altogether any wider representation, in the sense of representation of the public at large. If we are to have these four people nominated from the workers and the employers, and if we are not to increase the size of the Board, the eight members coming from the National Joint Council could be reduced in number. I am not certain that this might not be a better answer, for the reasons given by my noble friend Lord Lyell.
As we understand it, there are many more people affected than simply the dock workers and the dock employers in the whole operation of this Bill. I should have thought, in those circumstances, that it was right radically to change the composition of the Board in the kinds of proportions indicated by my noble friend. If eight and eight are too many, one could quite easily have six and six, possibly with representation from the wider interests, the consumer interests as well. I do not think the noble Lord has answered that point; and one has to remember the central fact here, that the present Dock Labour Board is essentially an administrative Board, whereas the new Dock Labour Board, it appears, will also have at any rate the possibility, if not the actual expectation, of extending its own limits and its own authority. It will be a different kind of Board altogether, and that should be very much reflected in the

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composition of the Board. I think this should be borne in mind in deciding the composition.
3.18 p.m.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: I should like to take up two points made by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, because I do not think he has fairly compared like with like. The old Dock Labour Board had administrative powers within very limited areas; but the new Bill, in some areas, is increasing the territory over which the Dock Labour Board will have power to ten times the previous territory. Taking into consideration the South-West, it increases to about 20 times the area of territory, and of course there will be firms within that territory who would be affected. Therefore I would support the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, and my noble friend Lord Lyell when they say that this ignores a very specialised and very knowledgeable representation of industries which could very well be affected by this much wider territory over which the new Board will have authority.
I cannot agree with the noble Lord who tried to compare this situation with that of the Coal Board, because here we really are not comparing like with like. The Coal Board deals only with coal in every region. This Bill will give power and authority to this Board over every type and kind of industry, and agriculture, that imports or exports, in relation to its warehousing, the transport of its goods, and so on. It really is not good enough to try to pretend that there is a fair comparison between a one-commodity industry such as coal and the appalling effect on all our import and export industries that could result under this Bill from the abuse of these powers, given over so wide a territory.
Lord SLATER: As the noble Baroness has made reference to the remarks I made and to the example that I gave in support of my noble friend, will she not agree that my noble friend said—and it was objected to by the noble Earl on the other side—in moving his Amendment, that the responsibility for the nomination and appointment of these new people to the Board would be given to the Secretary of State? I think that the noble Baroness has overlooked that feature. If the noble Baroness were to examine the position
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again she would find that instead of renouncing the application within the Amendments which have been so ably moved by the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, on the other side and supported by the Liberal Benches, with the exception of the third Amendment, the line adopted by my noble friend in seeking to approach these Amendments, the questions which have been put to him and the answers which he has given, is the right one.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: I am afraid that I cannot accept the proposition put forward by the noble Lord because I am not all that confident that the interests of the many sides of industry can be fairly represented by limited nominations, even though they are made by the Secretary of State.
3.22 p.m.
Lord MOTTISTONE: I should like to take up with the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, his opening remarks about the size of the Board, since he made a great distinction between 14 and 18. Certainly it is my experience, and I suspect that it is his, that size does not make very much difference once one gets beyond 10. It is absolutely true that if a Board is of the rough size of 10 it is much easier to handle; it can reach decisions more readily, although inevitably if it is that small it will not represent the kind of interests that the Government, let alone ourselves, are thinking about. However, once one goes beyond 10 it seems to me to be ridiculous to make a special point about whether 14 people are more manageable than 18. That is quite apart from the fact that in the case of Boards like this everybody does not turn up at each meeting; so we are speaking in practical terms of something like 16 out of 18, or 12 out of 14. I suggest that this is not a major issue and one which the noble Lord may think was not really worth putting forward.
Lord LUCAS of CHILWORTH: The point that I should like to take up with the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, stems from his remark that the Board will be representative, on the one hand, of the worker and, on the other hand, of the employer. It seems to me to be quite the wrong premise upon which to start, that already we are drawing lines. On the one side of the line

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is one group and on the other side another group. What this new Board has to do is to join forces for the betterment of everybody involved. The very expression that the noble Lord uses seems to pre-determine a position and this worries me very much. Having got, in the noble Lord's own words, these two groups, because of the numbers they cannot be representative of all the people who are involved.
If one looks at the people who are working in the dock they are represented by a large number of unions, a large number of activities. It is a great pity in general terms that one industry is represented by so many different unions. On the other side, the employers are anticipating an extension of activity within the ambit of the Bill, yet they are so poorly represented by their numbers. As the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, said, the function of the new Board will be to extend the activities. How, in an extension of activities, can all the interests be properly represented by this minimal increase in numbers?
There are new users coming into the docks activity. Whether the National Joint Council can represent all of those new users, some of which we have not yet identified, I do not know, but it would be quite wrong that we should come back to Parliament in five, six or 10 years' time in order to seek Amendments to a Bill of this kind. Surely the right thing to do is to make adequate provision in terms of representation of the various interests by having a sufficiently large number of people. Indeed, the recent technology of roll-on/roll-off boats in the South Coast ports is an illustration of this. Where can that new interest be represented? Certainly it cannot be represented in the National Joint Council which is already looking after the more traditional elements.
The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, has ably put the point that after 10—my own figure would have been 11—the numbers are not very material, but it is important that those who work in the dock, those who employ workers in the dock and those who use the dock should at least feel that they have the avenue of representation. The numbers suggested in the Bill are inadequate to provide this representation. I think that my noble
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friend Lord Lyell should be supported in his Amendment to give this spread of opportunity, not for that which we see today but for that which might be around the corner tomorrow.
Lord AMPTHILL: I support Amendment No. 1 and consequentially Amendment No. 2, for it introduces the first step in providing the possibility that the consumer will be represented on the Board. It has been accepted by the whole Committee that the effect of the Bill must cause an increase in prices, although the Government will not so admit. However, I am sure that your Lordships will agree that it can be helpful only if the country as a whole should have a voice in the deliberations of the Board and that its membership should not be restricted to those from within the industry. I mildly regret the increase in the size of the Board, for slimmer ones work better, but a balanced reduction of the other representatives might have been an alternative solution. However, it is imperative that the consumer has the chance to mitigate the harm which is being done and I urge your Lordships to support the Amendment.
Viscount SIMON: Before the noble Lord replies to these many points which have been made, may I put one other to him. Will he explain the comment that he made in reply to his noble friend Lord Shinwell in which, if I heard him aright, he suggested that if there were a dispute in the Board it would be settled by the Secretary of State? I should have thought that that was (a) quite undesirable and (b) not included in the Bill.
3.29 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: If I may reply to the last point first, I did not suggest that it was included in the Bill. I said that, being guided by past practice, I should imagine that the reference would be to the Secretary of State rather than to some kind of public inquiry. The principal function of this Board, as of the present Board, will be to administer the Dock Labour Scheme. That is to be their primary function: the industry provides the money and this Board spends it upon the administration of the Scheme. For example, it handles severance pay for the industry, deals with recruitment, and so on.

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It would be quite unreasonable to expect the industry, when it pays for the administration of a Scheme which will apply to that industry and that industry only, to accept the position that the Board should have a majority of people upon it who did not come from the industry. I suggest, as I suggested earlier, that if I were associated with that industry I should not accept that position and, let us be quite candid about it, there are very few people in this Committee who would do so, either. It depends upon which side of the fence you are on.
It is true that under the Bill the Board will have wider responsibilities in connection with the spreading of the Scheme to the non-Scheme ports and certain other classification of work. It is for that reason that the Government have insisted that there should be four additional members from outside the industry. These four additional members will be consumers just as much as everybody in this Committee is a consumer. It may well be that two will be workers and two employers, but they will not have the worker or the employer interest of that industry; they will be outside that industry and therefore they could as well represent the consumer interest as anyone else.
As to the size of the Board, I think it is important that we should try to get the right size and from the quotation that I gave your Lordships, Mr. Prior, leading for the Opposition in the other place, thought it was important that we should get the right size. He went further and said that we had got the right size in the Bill. I believe that the right size for a Board of this kind is somewhere between 10 and 15. Once you get over 15 it is burdensome. I believe a Board of 18 would be burdensome.
I would also remind your Lordships that since the inception of the Scheme, the National Joint Council of the industry have had eight representatives. Ultimately, the Scheme will be a much wider Scheme, but they are to continue to have only eight representatives—not more than eight. Consequently, they are being curtailed and the extension is entirely for people outside the industry. I feel that the provisions of the Bill fit the problem as well as it can be fitted and I certainly could not give any promise to go back and advocate a larger Board.
3.32 p.m.
Lord LYELL: We are grateful to the noble Lord for his observations and thankful for the courteous way in which he put them over, but we are not entirely satisfied. However, the noble Lord did start by quoting what my right honourable friend in another place, Mr. Prior, said on Committee. Perhaps the noble Lord will take it from me that Mr. Prior mentioned this position when he came to consider the Bill in another place on Report, and I am sure that if the noble Lord cares to look at the Report in Hansard of 26th July' in another place, he will find that Mr. Prior said:
"What is important, as we have stressed all through, is that the National Dock Labour Board should take into account the interests of consumers, the interests of users of the port, the interests of workers other than dock workers, and the interests particularly of employers other than dock employers."—[Official Report, Commons, 26/7/76; col. 37.]
That is what I was stressing in putting forward this Amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, raised a second point, that trade union leaders and employers who are involved in the dock industry would not accept the increased size of the Board. Speaker after speaker all round the House has said that the dock and cargo handling industry is so large that it covers far more than the mere interests of that industry. The noble Lord mentioned that there was nomination by the TUC and the CBI. So far as we can see, the alternative as advocated in the Bill is possibly nomination by another term—perhaps we might call it patronage by the Secretary of State—but we still do not believe that there will be adequate protection of all interests without the Amendment, which we believe to be reasonably necessary.
We have heard much about the consumer's interests. We believe that those interests must be adequately protected, and "consumers" covers a very wide band of the population. It is not just housewives, or consumer associations or anybody like that. It is industries and anybody who is importing or exporting through the ports and, indeed, many other trades and skills apart from what we understand as cargo handling and dock work. We are not entirely satisfied

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with the noble Lord's reply to these Amendments. He may be surprised to hear that certainly we do not wish to wreck the Bill at this early stage. After all, we have been discussing it for under thirty minutes. I must say that the Government's attitude on this series of Amendments is not entirely promising, particularly in view of what the noble Lord said about my right honourable friend in another place, and how he believed that 14, 16 or 18 was or was not the right number. Yet my right honourable friend, who is, I believe, an entirely consistent man, pointed out that other interests had to be taken into account when composing this Board.
Lord JACQUES: Other interests have been taken into account. The Bill provides that there shall be four additional Members representing outside interests and the Amendment provides for eight to be nominated by the CBI and the TUC, but there is no guarantee that they will represent outside interests. Those bodies could be under pressure to appoint from within the industry, and they would be.
Lord LYELL: Would the noble Lord take it that the same argument goes for the four just as for the eight?
Lord JACQUES: No, I am sorry; it does not, because in the case of the four the CBI and the TUC are simply consulted. The Secretary of State makes the appointments and he will see that they are outside people. Under the Amendment, the additional members are nominated by the CBI and the TUC and they will be under very strong pressure to nominate from within the industry, if the Board has a minority in the industry. They will obviously seek to get a majority through the trade associations and the trade unions.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: Will the noble Lord allow me to interrupt for just one moment? I am not thrilled at all about the Secretary of State having those powers.
Lord JACQUES: I should have expected that.
Lord LYELL: We are grateful for the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord
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Jacques, but really we believe that even though these eight are to be nominated they will obtain a wider spread of interests than the mere nomination or patronage, as I call it, of four people even though the Secretary of State may wish to make up his own mind and use his own judgment. We on these Benches believe that the pressures on the Secretary of State will be just the same as they are from the two respective sides of the port employers and the port employees. Nevertheless, we think that in view of the very wide-ranging debate that has gone on we should like to consult further. That is why, albeit fairly reluctantly, I would seek to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
3.38 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE Lord TREFGARNE moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 21, leave out ("and").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 4 is a paving Amendment and it happens that it paves the way not only for my Amendment No. 5, but also for the Amendment standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear—that is to say, Amendment No. 6.
While being very disappointed in the attitude of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, to the last group of Amendments, I am none the less fortified in the reaction to the proposals that he may be able to see his way clear to a more accommodating attitude to this Amendment. The warehousing industry is very widely represented at docks and docksides, both on waterways as defined in a later stage in the Bill and also, of course, at the many harbours.
It is impossible to imagine, apart from the shipping companies themselves, an industry more intimately involved in the activities of ports and harbours than the warehousing industry, and I put it to your Lordships that they above all people ought to be consulted concerning representation on the Board that we are establishing in this clause. The National Association of Warehousekeepers is not a particularly well organised body from the point of view of trade unions. Although the TUC no doubt have many members who work in warehouses, they are not

313
the same union at all as the Transport and General Workers and in general they do not follow the same lines. It is for that reason that I am suggesting to your Lordships that the Association so intimately involved in the matters and proposals in this Bill ought really to be consulted on the membership of the Board. I beg to move.
Baroness VICKERS: I should like to support my noble friend very briefly in this Amendment because I think these people do an extremely important service to the country. So far as I understand it, they own 70 per cent. of the total warehouse space. I mentioned this, in column 618 of the Official Report, at Second Reading. I was thinking particularly then of the foodstuffs in the warehouses and cold stores. As I understand it, it is essential that these be kept at correct temperatures because if that is not done this can ruin the contents in these warehouses and cold stores. These men are experts in their job and I gather that at the present time 70 per cent. of the area occupied by the Association's members falls in the handling zone so this will make it very difficult for them to continue their normal work.
Also, as I understand it, public warehouses operated for many centuries in this country before the dock workers were registered. It is a very old industry going back to Roman history. It is for these reasons which I have put very briefly—the absolute necessity for our food and other commodities to be kept in the right temperatures, which can be done, I suggest, only by these real experts, and that it is not a new industry but has served a purpose over many centuries—that I beg to support my noble friend's Amendment.
Lord HAWKE: I believe that these people have a further function and that is in the re-export trade, which is vitally important to this country. The breaking of bulk imports and the re-export in smaller vessels to the continent of Europe, and so on, has long been a great tradition of this country. If the working of the ports becomes so expensive that Antwerp and Rotterdam become cheaper, the great ships will sail to Rotterdam and Antwerp, bulk will be broken there and those countries will get the benefit of the
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re-export trade. For that reason these people have a very vital interest in keeping the handling of our ports at the cheapest possible level so that we can compete in the international re-export trade.
Lord DOUGLASS of CLEVELAND: As I believe warehousemen will be well represented under the terms of the Bill, could we be told what the membership of this Association is and what proportion of warehousemen it actually represents?
Lord TREFGARNE: By leave of the Committee, may I intervene once more? My information is that about 70 per cent. of all the warehouses in operation in the United Kingdom are members of this Association and about 70 per cent. of those are to be found within the regions which will be covered by this Bill if it goes through Parliament as at present drafted.
Lord JACQUES: I think I should just remind the Committee that the National Dock Labour Board is not going to manage the industry. All that the Board is going to do is to manage the Scheme and the object of the Scheme is to decasualise work. While some of the work undertaken by members of the National Association of Warehousekeepers is certainly among the work which could be classified under the Bill, there are a number of other employers' associations in a similar position—for example, the National Cold Store Federation. It would not be practical to require consultation with all such associations before appointing these members of the Board. The employers in question will almost all be individually or through their trade association in membership of the CBI and their interests can therefore be adquately represented through the CBI. I would add that if we were forced to consult individual trade associations on the employers' side it would not end there. Then each trade union would want to be consulted instead of just the TUC.
Lord TREFGARNE: Of course trade unions are consulted. They only have to go on strike and any one of them can be consulted.
Lord JACQUES: I do not think that strikes have anything to do with this question. It is not practical, and this has

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been the position when the Opposition have been in power and have had similar Bills. They have told us time after time that it is not practical to consult the individual trade associations and the individual trade unions. These trade unions are affiliated to the TUC and the employers' associations to the CBI and it is practical to consult two bodies and to get their opinions and take them into account, but not to consult every trade association of employers and every trade union of employees. I hope that the noble Lord will consider withdrawing his Amendment on the ground that it is not a practical proposition.
Lord LYELL: Is the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, really satisfied that every trade association should be consulted? Is he aware that there is very widespread concern throughout this industry and in warehouses which have been described by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne, and indeed by others, and that there are three very substantial trade unions which are concerned in this industry? Maybe the noble Lord does not believe it, but we can produce evidence—perhaps even within minutes, if he wishes—which has been presented to us that members of these three large trade unions are not entirely satisfied with their position and their employment prospects under the Bill as it stands. Would the noble Lord accept that?
Lord JACQUES: I would not accept that. I would tell the noble Lord that the TUC, representing all those trade unions, including those referred to by the noble Lord—and some of them are on the Council of the TUC—is quite happy with the Bill as it stands.
Lord TREFGARNE: I am not going to pursue the argument on consultation with the trade unions. My Amendment has nothing to do with that. I am simply saying that consultation ought to be required with one of the principal employers in the dock areas. There are, I have no doubt, other employers as well and very likely they ought to be consulted too, but I am not moving an Amendment on that at this point. I am simply endeavouring to rectify one defect in this Bill. There are numerous defects in this Bill, to my mind, and it is not possible for me personally to move Amendments to rectify
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every single defect. My noble friends Lord Lyell and Lord Gowrie are moving a whole string of Amendments to this Bill which we all hope will rectify some of the worst defects, but this is a Government Bill and it is the Government who should rectify the defects in it, not us. However, here is one defect which I am trying to rectify.
Lord SHINWELL: May I ask my noble friend a question? Is it within his knowledge that when this matter was considered by the TUC and also by the CBI, because both bodies are very much concerned, in the case of the TUC they must have consulted those other unions which are interested and similarly, so far as the CBI were concerned and involved, they must have consulted a variety of other interests which are associated with the CBI in one form or another? Is that within his knowledge because, if the TUC consulted a variety of similar interests and were satisfied, and if the CBI, representing other interests, were also consulted and were quite satisfied, is not that all the consultation that is required?
Lord JACQUES: I may say that in the case of the TUC there were such consultations as my noble friend has mentioned. I am not aware of the procedure in the CBI, but if there is going to be a Division on this Amendment let me point out—
Lord TREFGARNE: On a point of order, is the noble Lord allowed to continue his speech?
Lord JACQUES: There cannot be a point of order. This is a Committee stage and when an Amendment is moved that initiates a discussion. It does not end the discussion; it initiates it. I just want to point out that if there is to be a Division I hope we shall get it straight that when the Opposition are in Government they insist that it is not practicable to consult individual trade associations of employers and individual trade unions. They have done that time after time. This is not new to us. We are just doing what previous Conservative Governments have done, and if noble Lords opposite vote for this Amendment they will be acting very inconsistently.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: Good gracious!
3.51 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 4) shall be agreed to?
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 137; Not-Contents, 69.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Elles, B.

Mottistone, L.

Alport, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Amherst, E.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Moyne, L.

Amory, V.

Erskine of Rerrick, L.

Newall, L.

Ampthill, L.

Ferrers, E.

Northchurch, B.

Amulree, L. [Teller.]

Gage, V.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Auckland, L.

Gisborough, L.

Platt, L.

Avebury, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Powis, E.

Balerno, L.

Glasgow, E.

Radnor, E.

Banks, L.

Glenkinglas, L.

Rathcavan, L.

Barnby, L.

Goschen, V.

Redesdale, L.

Barrington, V.

Gowrie, E.

Rochdale, V.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Granville of Eye, L.

Sackville, L.

Belstead, L.

Gray, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Berkeley, B.

Greenway, L.

St. Davids, V.

Birdwood, L.

Grey, L.

Salisbury, M.

Bledisloe, V.

Gridley, L.

Sandford, L.

Boothby, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Sandys, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Selkirk, E.

Brentford, V.

Hankey, L.

Sharples, B.

Burnham, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Simon, V.

Byers, L.

Hawke, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Caccia, L.

Hives, L.

Somers, L.

Cairns, E.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Spens, L.

Caithness, E.

Howe, E.

Stamp, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Ilchester, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Carrington, L.

Kemsley, V.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Clancarty, E.

Kimberley, E.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Clitheroe, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Strathspey, L.

Clwyd, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Sudeley, L.

Colwyn, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Terrington, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.

Thomas, L.

Cromartie, E.

Loudoun, C.

Tranmire, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Trefgarne, L. [Teller.]

Daventry, V.

Luke, L.

Trevelyan, L.

de Clifford, L.

Lyell, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Denham, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Vickers, B.

Deramore, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Vivian, L.

Derwent, L.

McNair, L.

Wade, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Marley, L.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Dudley, B.

Middleton, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Duncan-Sandys, L,

Monck, V.

Westbury, L.

Dundee, E.

Monk Bretton, L.

Wigoder, L.

Ebbisham, L.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Young, B.

Eccles, V.

Morris, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aylestone, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Bacon, B.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Rusholme, L.

Blyton, L.

Henderson, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Brimelow, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Segal, L.

Brockway, L.

Jacques, L.

Shinwell, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Janner, L.

Slater, L.

Champion, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Snow, L.

Chorley, L.

Leatherland, L.

Soper, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Southwark, Bp.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

Longford, E.

Stedman, B.

Crowther-Hunt, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Cudlipp, L.

Lyons of Brighton, L.

Stone, L.

Darling of Hillsborough, L.

McCluskey, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Maelor, L.

Summerskill, B.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Maybray-King, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.

Melchett, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Murray of Gravesend, L.

Wells-Pestell, L. [Teller.]

Douglass of Cleveland, L.

Oram, L.

Williamson, L.

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

Paget of Northampton, L.

Willis, L.

Evans of Hungershall, L.

Pannell, L.

Wilson of High Wray, L.

Fulton, L.

Pargiter, L.

Winterbottom, L. [Teller.]

Gardiner, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal)

Wooton of Abinger, B.

Garner, L.

Raglan, L.

Wynne-Jones, L.

4.2 p.m.
Lord TREFGARNE Lord TREFGARNE moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 1, line 22, at end insert ("and the National Association of Warehousekeepers").
The noble Lord said: This is the Amendment for which we have just paved the way. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord WIGODER Lord WIGODER moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 1, line 22, at end insert ("and the National Consumer Council").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, which is a modest Amendment designed to add the National Consumer Council to the list of bodies in subsection (4) of Clause 1 which are to be consulted by the Secretary of State when he appoints the remaining four members of the Board. The object of this Amendment is to give recognition to the fact that this Bill not only creates a situation in which there is a cosy carve-up within the docks of a domestic area of activity between employers and employees, but creates also matters which are of vital importance to the consumer as a whole. That is an issue which has already been raised in some of the observations when Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 3 were debated.
If I may say so, I was astonished to hear the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, say that the existing National Dock Labour Scheme was paid for by the industry. I do not accept that at all. It is not paid for by the industry; it is paid for by the consumer. It is paid for every time a housewife goes to do her shopping. What concerns us on these Benches about the Bill is that it will very materially add to the burden that the housewife will have to bear in future. If that be so, it is only common sense that the consumers, through the only appropriate body, which I think is the National Consumer Council, should be among those consulted by the Secretary of State.
When I say that this Bill will increase the burden to be borne by the consumer, I want to ask the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, one or two questions, of which I gave him what little notice I could this morning. First of all, does the noble Lord seriously dispute that the result of this
320
Bill will be that employers who are not at present paying the levy will in future have to do so? If so, must that not inevitably to some extent increase costs? Can the noble Lord give us some estimate of the amount by which costs are thus to be increased? Secondly, does the Bill not inevitably mean that some employees in future will be paid for doing a week's work even when they are not actually doing a week's work? One understands that that is the situation in the docks, and one understands well the historical reasons why that extraordinary situation has arisen. But does that not mean that costs will increase? If so, can the noble Lord tell us what the estimate of the Government is of how much is involved in that direction?
Thirdly, this Bill, if it is passed into law, will extend the Scheme to small, non-Scheme ports where, at the moment, there is a very limited amount of casual labour perfectly happily and contentedly employed. If the Bill is brought into force, does it not mean either that those small non-Scheme ports will have to close down, with a consequent increase in the cost of distribution of foodstuffs in the vicinity of those ports, or alternatively that they will be put to substantially increased expense in employing full-time labour in accordance with the Scheme? If that is so, can the noble Lord give some indication of the amount of money thus to be spent in that direction? Finally, is the noble Lord aware that the National Cold Storage Federation has estimated that if this Scheme is implemented it will increase the costs of handling goods by as much as £6 per ton? Have the Government made any investigation into those figures? Can they either confirm that they are correct or, alternatively, indicate what, in the Government's estimate, the correct figures will be? If, in all these circumstances, a substantial extra burden will be placed on the consumer, it is at least common sense that the consumer should have a still, small voice and be consulted when the Board is established. I beg to move.
Lord SHINWELL: I agree with almost every argument that has been adduced by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. His argument was impeccable, but I reject his conclusion. I reject it because almost everything for which the noble Lord is

321
asking—and he has a right to ask—is contained in Clause 2. If one examines Clause 2, one discovers that the Board is responsible for the administration and for the general conduct of the organisation. The Board has to take into account almost every consideration affecting the national interests, affecting the workers themselves and affecting those associated with the business. I must confess to having some doubts about the effectiveness of consumer councils. We have a number of these consumer councils. I am sorry the noble Lord, Lord Peddie, who is Chairman of the Post Office Consumer Council is not present, because I would rather say this in his presence than behind his back. This Consumer Council has been operating for quite a long time and the longer it operates the worse the service of the Post Office becomes. I do not blame the noble Lord, Lord Peddie, and his Consumer Council because of it, but the fact of the matter is that these consumer councils talk and talk. I am not objecting to talking—I am a bit of a talker myself, and I do not denigrate the profession. But that is really all it amounts to. What we want is action. The action is contained in Clause 2, because those who are to be responsible for the administration and the conduct of affairs are explicitly told what is expected of them.
So I repeat that although I think the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, were supreme and presented in his usual remarkable forensic manner, I believe that really he is flogging a dead horse, and the last thing I should like to see is the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, indulging in an escapade of that kind. I advise my noble friend on the Front Bench—perhaps he will not agree with me, but I cannot help that because I am quite satisfied that I am right—that we must concern ourselves with the national interest. As the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, rightly said, we are concerned about consumer aspects. There is no question about it. By the time it is referred to the Consumer Council, referred to the CBI, referred to the TUC—and these bodies will refer it to their affiliated organisations—there will be so much consultation that in point of fact nothing will be done that is of the slightest use to the industry at all. So I suggest that, although the noble Lord has ex
322
pressed himself remarkably well, his conclusion should be rejected.
Viscount AMORY: The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, has said that he believes the obligations laid on the Board under Clause 2 provide a satisfactory answer to the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. I would ask the noble Lord whether, in the light of experience of nationalised boards to date, he really thinks that the obligations there provide a satisfactory answer to the very relevant questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. It seems very difficult to belive that they do.
Lord SHINWELL: I am bound to say this to my noble friend—I will call him my noble friend because we were colleagues in another place for quite a long time, although I arrived there accidentally before be was born—that If I were to embark on a dissertation on nationalisation and nationalised boards I would occupy your Lordships' time to too great an extent. I have got very many things to say on the subject, and perhaps I might be invited at some time to give a lecture on it, but not now.
4.12 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: Had we thought there was a substantial consumer interest we should certainly have been happy to consult with a consumer organisation, and it almost certainly would have been the Consumer Council. But we are of the opinion that there is not a substantial consumer interest. Remember that the object of the whole Scheme is decasualisation of labour. That does not necessarily involve higher costs.
Lord WIGODER: Would the noble Lord forgive me? Could he please indicate how many casual workers this Scheme will decasualise? Is not the figure something over 300?
Lord JACQUES: I could not give a figure, because we do not yet know what work is going to be classified. We have no figures of that kind. I certainly have no figure of 300. The whole object of this Scheme, particularly since 1967, has been decasualisation of labour; that is its primary function. In fact it is very little else but decasualisation of labour. And

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decasualisation of labour does not necessarily increase costs. It has been my experience over the years that when you have part-time labour, to come at your request at the time you want it, you have to pay more for it per hour than you pay for full-time labour. So it does not necessarily mean that you would reduce costs.
There would, in the case of the dock industry, in our opinion, be some saving in costs, because of improved industrial relations. Remember the strikes of the early 1970s? They were all about the problems with which this Bill is dealing. Up to 1970 we had never had a comprehensive dock strike other than the General Strike. In 1970 and in 1972, for the first time we had comprehensive dock strikes, because of the problems with which this Bill is dealing. Then we had an unofficial strike in London immediately afterwards. After the strike the ACAS had an inquiry. The inquiry committee reported that the best thing that could be done to prevent a repetition was for the present Government to go forward as speedily as possible with their proposals for dock work regulation. We were recommended by the inquiry committee to go ahead with it. Therefore, there is an independent opinion, completely outside the Government, that this Bill will improve industrial relations in the docks. It will therefore reduce the losses that we get from strikes, and, therefore, in fact might be of benefit to consumers rather than a hindrance.
I would also point out that the Dock Labour Board is not concerned with negotiation of wages. Wages are negotiated in the National Joint Council. That is not the function of the Board at all. I further point out that although a good deal has been made of the cost of redundancy or severance pay in the industry, in general the cost of services by the employers for the employees in the dock industry is not high. As I said on Second Reading, the cost to the dock employer under the scheme for pensions, redundancy and all the other benefits for employees for which he pays, is 11 per cent., and of course the greater part of that is severance. The whole lot is 11 per cent. of wages. In the chemical industry, which I took as an example, it is 10·3 per cent., and for white collar workers in the chemical industry it is 15 per cent. So that we cannot say that
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the Scheme is going to inflict very high additional costs.
On the questions that were put specifically: if there are new employers brought within the Scheme, will they have to pay the levy? Yes, but that would mean that the levy is more than it has been. There will be more levy only if there is more severance; it is mostly for severance pay. The levy is at a different rate at the different ports; it varies between 4 and 5 per cent. according to the port. But the amount of the levy will not increase because of this Bill. The amount of the levy that has to be paid by the industry will increase if the costs increase, and the biggest cost is severance pay.
Viscount SIMON: Would the noble Lord allow me to put one question? Is he saying that although the new Board will be operating over a much wider field, its administrative expenses will be no larger than those of the present Board?
Lord JACQUES: I certainly did not intend to say that. I think it is a good question. I would say, if it is operating over a larger field with, as will be the case, local Boards, there is bound to be some increase in administrative expenses. I would think that would be negligible. That is not a substantial consumer interest. Severance pay is a substantial consumer interest, and I answered the question with that in mind.
So far as the minimum wage is concerned, I think if a man is on call he should be paid his wage. The Dock Labour Scheme has not been necessarily wasteful. It has very largely meant that instead of a large number of people being employed part-time a smaller number are employed full-time. So far as the small ports are concerned, the small ports will be brought within the Scheme only if they are found to come within the criteria laid down in the Bill; for example, where there is casual labour and it is necessary for the purposes of the port to have a full-time staff. The criteria are quite clearly laid down in the Bill, and it follows from that that all the small ports will not be dragged in.
I have no knowledge of the £6 per ton. I certainly would not accept it. Having regard to what has happened with this kind of thing in the past, I would say it

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is a bit of propaganda. It is the kind of propaganda that goes on—it has gone on with the aircraft Bill—and it will go on with this Bill and any other Bill of the same kind.
Lord WIGODER: May I intervene again to ask whether, if the noble Lord rejects that as propaganda, the Government have done their sums and what figure do they reach?
Lord JACQUES: I am not aware of any figure, and I should imagine that no figure is available because the scheme has not been drafted; we do not know how far we are going with classification, with bringing in ports. It will be a long time before the questions can be answered. I do not think that any reliable estimate can be made at the moment. That is one reason why I suspect that this is propaganda.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Would not the noble Lord agree that it is rather irresponsible, in view of the debate which took place in another place yesterday and the general state of the country, for the Government to put forward a Bill which is going to cost money—and the noble Lord has not refuted that—when they have not bothered to make even an estimate of figures in order to see whether this money is going to be well spent? is not that something the Government should get on with and try to provide an answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, at a later stage of the Bill when it is convenient?
Lord JACQUES: As I said, I should imagine that any estimate put forward at the moment could not be considered to be very reliable because it has yet to be decided within the criteria of the Bill what work will, and what work will not, be classified. The additional cost, if any, will depend upon what additional work is classified. We have got a long way to go before we ever reach an answer to that question.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Would the noble Lord not agree that these sums ought to have been done? The noble Lord is a very experienced and very skilful businessman himself, and he will have had experience of many occasions on which some sort of estimates have to be made against just as
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doubtful a background as he is indicating in relation to this Bill, and one has to get on with it in a businesslike way in order to have some idea of where the money is going to be spent and where it has to be found from. I strongly suggest that it is only reasonable that these sums should be done, and that the Government Department should get to work and do them.
Lord JACQUES: Estimates should be based upon facts, and in so far as they are not based on facts they are very rough estimates indeed. I would say that you could make estimates on assumptions which may not in due course be the facts, but that is the only way in which you could do it. Those figures may in fact be available so far as I know, and if they are available I should be very pleased to convey them to the noble Lord, but I should be extremely doubtful whether they are available. It is because of the difficulties there that I have had some suspicion of this. In conclusion, may I say that if we did think that there was a real and substantial consumer interest we would not have any doubt in accepting this Amendment, but we do not think there is a substantial consumer interest; nor do we think that the case that there is has been established.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: Would the noble Lord not agree that, with 50 per cent. of our food coming in as imports into this country, and the handling and warehousing of it being of prime importance, we could not have a greater consumer interest?
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: May I add, in reply to what the noble Lord said, that in his previous speech on another Amendment with which he did not agree he said that everybody was a consumer. So if everybody is a consumer there must be a consumer interest. I find this just a little odd. It may well be that the National Consumer Council protects, or at any rate tries to protect, consumers who perhaps are not so argumentative as I and a few other people are; and many people who are really interested and knowledgeable about the Scheme would be able, through the trade unions and the CBI and all the rest of them, to have the consumer interest considered. But the National Consumer

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Council tries to look after people who find it extremely difficult to know where to go to have their interests protected. The noble Lord must not be annoyed if I say that I think that it is absolutely fantastic that, first of all he says everybody has a consumer interest, and then says that if he really thought there was a consumer interest he would be willing to accept the Amendment. It is just dotty.
Lord JACQUES: I am not surprised. Of course we are all consumers—I think we all accept that—but whether or not there is a consumer interest in this particular case depends on two things: first, whether the operation of this new Scheme under the Bill will add substantially to the prices paid by consumers, and, secondly, whether it will affect supplies. I think those are the two questions. We must examine those two questions if we are going to decide whether there is a substantial consumer interest. We are of the opinion, as I have explained in some detail, that there will not he any perceptible increase in prices arising out of the operation of the new Dock Labour Scheme. I do not think there is any doubt about that. Any increase in prices will be negligible as a result of the operation of this scheme.
So far as shortages are concerned, might I point out that before any work can be classified, first it has to be third party handling—that is to say, if a firm is handling its own goods, or the goods of an associated company, then it does not come within this scheme at all. It has to be third party handling, and third party handling only. Secondly, it has to be within 5 miles of the high-water mark. It has to be within the five mile zone. Thirdly, the warehouse, or whatever, must be handling imports or exports. If it was handling only or substantially only home produced foods then it would not be involved. This Bill is concerned with the handling of imports and exports. Fourthly, a most elaborate two-stage procedure is set out in Schedule 4 before any work can be classified. It is a most elaborate two-stage procedure. In addition, there have to be consultations with the Minister of Agriculture. There are so many obstacles that in our opinion there is no likelihood whatever of the
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extension of the Dock Labour Scheme having any effect at all on food suppliers.
Viscount SIMON: Could not the noble Lord come a little closer to us over this? Nothing very much is involved. He has said that if he was satisfied that there was a large consumer interest he would readily agree. All the Amendment is asking is that the Consumer Council shall be consulted before an appointment is made. As his noble friend Lord Shinwell says, it is not as though they have to be consulted about every decision of the Board; it is only about an appointment to the Board. Once that has been done somebody is appointed, and until he dies, or something like that, and a successor has to be appointed, there is nothing more to be done. This is such a small thing and there is a feeling, I am sure through the country, that they would feel very much happier if there was this consultation. It amounts to so little. Could not the noble Lord meet us on this point?
Lord JACQUES: I am prepared to consult with my right honourable friend and see whether it is possible for further consideration to be given to it. It is not new. It is not being raised for the first time. I am quite prepared to find out whether there is some way in which we can meet the point of view which has been put forward, but without any commitment.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: I wonder whether my noble friend would do that because there is a very relevant point here. I know my noble friend's interest in the consumer and the Cooperative movement, and that is not in doubt—it goes back a long time—but those of us who take a great interest in the consumer movement at the present time hope that at last we are moving into a new sphere. For a long time when we wanted to get a consumer body recognised we were told, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ward of North Tyneside, said, that we were all consumers. That is not really the point. I do not feel that we shall make a great deal of progress in the best ways of the consumer movement until the movement itself is accepted, whether or not one considers it to be one of the powers or estates in the land, and I should have thought that if the TUC and the

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CBI were consulted they would agree that it was eminently reasonable to say (I appreciate that the Amendment refers to the National Consumer Council) that such a body should be consulted, too.
I take it from what the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, said, that it would not mean that the Consumer Council would have the right to have somebody on the committee; it is a question of consultation. Until we break this barrier we shall not get far. On "Neddy" we—if I may use the word "we" in this context—have at last managed to get the chairman of the National Consumer Council sitting in there, and that is at least a step forward. I hope that my noble friend will be able to look at the matter purely from that point of view, because I am sure that the Government believe in the best type of progress for the consumer, and I should hate to be disappointed. I hope that my noble friend will do as he has suggested and look at the matter again.
Lord JACQUES: My problem is that I believe that there is no substantial consumer interest involved. However, I very much agree with the principle expounded by my noble friend that if one can do anything to further that principle one should try to do it. Largely for that reason I have said that I will take the matter back, and I will write to the noble Lord in good time to enable him, if he is dissatisfied, to table an Amendment on Report.
Lord WIGODER: We seem to be embarking on a state of ever-increasing bewilderment, because when the Bill was first drafted it was widely trumpeted in dockland as being a measure to provide new job opportunities for existing registered dockers. That was its purpose. As a result of protests, which are fully understood, from other unions, safeguards have been written into the Bill. It was conceded after long argument in Committee in another place and then on Second Reading here that the Bill did not provide any new jobs at all for registered dockers in the immediate future, although it might provide a handful in the years to come, but nothing like sufficient to cope with the existing surplus of labour in the docks. We have therefore had a different justification for the Bill put forward; namely, that it is to deal with the decasualisation
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of labour. It is the first time I have heard that put forward, as the prime object of the Bill. What casual labour is being decasualised we shall have to discover as our Committee proceedings proceed. As I understand it, the only casual labour that might be affected by the Bill is the existing casual labour in the small non-scheme ports, where I think the figure for the whole country is 327; it might be 357, and I would not go to the stake on either figure. That the Bill is seriously being introduced to provide all this elaborate machinery to deal with 357 people who are contentedly doing a part-time job in the small non-scheme ports flabbergasts me.
However, that hardly arises out of this limited and modest Amendment, which was intended as a token one to draw attention to the consumer interest. The area has been widened by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, asking whether there was a substantial consumer interest involved in the Bill. Eventually the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry—and I am grateful for her assistance in this matter—clearly had rather more effect on the Minister than any noble Lords who spoke from this side of the Committee. Lord Jacques said that he would undertake to look at the matter again and notify us before the next stage of the Bill. We are grateful to him for that and it would be ungracious, at any rate at this time, not to seek leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 [General duty of the Board]:
4.37 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 2, line 11, after ("Board") insert (", having regard to the public interest,").
The noble Lord said: This is concerned broadly with the same subject as the last Amendment. We have indeed been encouraged by the response of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, to that Amendment and we feel that much of what he said is relevant to this one. Lord Jacques admitted that we were all consumers. There were differences of opinion on how far the consumer interest was affected by the Bill and those opinions will be stronger on one side of the Committee than on the other. The intervention of the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, was welcome. We are pleased to see that not

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only is there support for this concept in the Committee but that it is spreading, and we hope that this concept of the consumer interest, and indeed the public interest, can be spread a little more widely.
I referred to this matter when we discussed the first three Amendments; I spoke of how the Bill would expand the spheres of activity covered by the Dock Labour Scheme and by everything we know as dock work, and I explained how it would increasingly affect industry and consumers. All of us are consumers. It will affect all of us as consumers of food and imports; it will affect those of us who are workers and are involved in the export trade; it will involve so many of us that it will concern the vast majority of people. We believe that the Bill will be particularly relevant to port services and people working therein and in warehouses, and of course the Bill will affect the cold storage industry.
We have heard from Lord Jacques that he will endeavour to see how the interests of the consumer can be incorporated in the Bill. We believe that the Board should be required to give further and due consideration to the public interest in addition to the more limited interests which might be affected by the provisions of the Bill. This is not a completely radical concept and, having been encouraged by what Lord Jacques said on the last Amendment, we look forward with interest to hearing what the Government have to say about the slightly wider concept raised by this Amendment; namely, not merely the interests of consumers, because we believe that the public interest could involve other interests as well.
Lord ORAM: I suggest to the Committee that it would not be appropriate to adopt the Amendment. I make that suggestion because the Board which is to be set up under the Bill will be a responsible body. Noble Lords were perhaps disappointed in not getting the Board's constitution changed in accordance with earlier Amendments. Nevertheless, I think they will concede that, as provided by the Bill, it will be an entirely responsible body and that there is no reason to assume that if this Amendment is not accepted, then when the Board undertakes reviews under
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the clause it will make suggestions or put forward proposals which could be considered contrary to or not taking account of the public interest. As a responsible body they would recognise that the public interest was the major interest for them to serve.
Although the noble Lord did not, I think, quite make this point, an idea which no doubt underlies this Amendment is that, in considering whether to make proposals under the later subsections of this clause, the Board should be required to take due account of a broader public interest if this appeared to conflict with the particular interests of dock workers and dock employers. Such a conflicting public interest would, however, be something incapable, I suggest, of precise definition. We were talking just now about the consumer interest, and over many years I have taken some interest in the expression "the defence of the consumer interest". That in itself, I think we should all concede, is difficult enough to define, but a precise definition of "the public interest", as the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, said, is wider than that issue which we were considering just now, and is even more difficult of precise definition. What I think is far more important is that under subsection (5) of the clause the Board is required to maintain regular consultations with a very wide variety of bodies and interests which are concerned with dock work so that it can listen to what they have to say and take account of their views.
I would suggest one further point to your Lordships. Clause 2 places on the Board only a broad general requirement to keep the overall situation under review, and, if and when they think it appropriate, to make proposals to the Secretary of State. This clause does not give the Board specific powers. The Secretary of State would himself want to consider any proposals made in the light of all the relevant factors, which would include the public interest, and if he thought, on balance, that any particular proposal was contrary to the public interest I think it is clear, since he is responsible to Parliamentary scrutiny, that he would obviously not act upon such a proposal. For these reasons, I am afraid that, on behalf of the Government, I am not in a position to accept the Amendment.
Viscount SIMON: I should like, from these Benches, to support this Amendment, and I am very disappointed with the reply which has been given by the noble Lord. It does not seem to me really consistent with the attitude which the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, was taking on the earlier Amendments, when we were pressing for wider representation on the Board. He then said that it was inappropriate because the Board was dealing only with very narrow matters. It is just because the Board is dealing with very narrow matters that I should have thought it was desirable that, in the Statute, their attention should be called—it may not amount to very much, but that their attention should be called—to the need to have regard to the public interest.
The noble Lord referred to subsection (5), which asks them to maintain regular consultation with the National Ports Council and, "others appearing to the Board to be concerned". The National Ports Council is of course concerned through its association with the ports, and I should have read that clause to mean other, similar bodies which are concerned in that sort of field, and not the broad bodies which are concerned with the public interest. So, for myself, I feel it is a great pity that the Government are not prepared to put in these, if I may say so, rather harmless words, but words which will continuously remind the Board that it must look at a wider horizon than just the ports and warehouses with which it is directly concerned.
Lord SHINWELL: I doubt whether there is anybody in your Lordships' Committee who could specifically define what is meant by "the public interest". To take a few examples, if we asked the Liberal Party how they would define it they would say, "Let us have electoral reform; that is in the public interest". If we asked the Conservative Party what was their definition of "the public interest", they would say, "Get rid of the Labour Government as soon as possible". The public interest is quite incapable of definition specifically. Almost every one of us has used the term. I have used it myself on innumerable occasions, particularly on the election platform, at the hustings; but, quite frankly, I was not quite sure what I was talking about. The public interest varies so much, and there are so many
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ramifications, there are so many possible interpretations of the public interest, that, quite frankly, to insert it into a Bill would be to insert a cliché, and, heaven knows!, we have far too many clichés without embodying this one in legislation.
This reminds me of the debate we had a little while ago about consumer interests. The same applies to consumer interests. When my noble friend Lady Burton made one of her innumerable, eloquent speeches on the subject of consumer interests, it occurred to me that for many years she has been concerned about consumer interests in connection with aircraft and travelling by air, but in point of fact she has been more effective when she has been presenting the case personally than any consumer council associated with that subject could be. Almost every Member of your Lordships' House can be an advocate of some particular consumer interest or some particular public interest. Of course we can. What is the point of inserting a cliché of this kind? It is of no value whatever; and I must confess—
Lord WIGODER: If the noble Lord will forgive me, I was going to ask him, before he sits down, whether he agrees that it would be very much easier for us to define "the public interest" if only we could find out what the purpose of the Bill was.
Lord SHINWELL: That does not at all vitiate anything that I have said about the matter. It is a very interesting point, but I never bother about interruptions, anyhow, particularly when I am not capable of replying to them effectively. The fact of the matter is that we are making a bit of a farce of this business. Here is a situation—and let us face it, because I do not want to bother much more about it—where something new is being imposed on our industrial organisation. In point of fact, if I may say so—and perhaps I have as much knowledge of the docks as anybody in your Lordships' Committee because I was for a long time associated with the docks when I was connected with the seafarers, and I know every dock in the country; there is not a dock I have not visited at some time or other, not altogether to my advantage—it has nothing to do with decasualisation, either. The subject of decasualisation has already been dealt with. This is something quite different.

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The purpose of the Bill is to provide dockers who perhaps may be unemployed but who are at the same time receiving all the remuneration, to which they are not entitled—I do not want to get into trouble because of what I have just said—with an opportunity to engage in work about five miles away from the actual scene of operations. If I may say so, it is a cock-eyed piece of legislation; but, of course, sometimes such legislation has to be introduced for one reason or another—sometimes for personal reasons, sometimes because we want to placate a particular organisation or a group of organisations. There are all sorts of reasons for proposing legislation, although whether it is passed is another matter. No, no! Let us not make a fuss of this "in the public interest". I am quite satisfied that nobody could specify meticulously, without offering a whole series of interpretations and assumptions and all the rest, this matter of public interest. I suggest that we forget about it and get on with the Bill.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Although I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, generally that clichés are not desirable and "public interest" is hard to define, in this particular case it is not so. There is a public interest with regard to the docks where there is not in many other cases. That is because every day of every year, half the country's food supplies come through the docks. If the activities of the docks are impeded for any reason over a period of a couple of days some people will starve. It is as blunt as that. I think there is a public interest in this regard which is very special to the docks. There would not be public interest in many other respects as, for instance, a general impeding of all the bus companies or even the railways, but the docks are unique and public interest is paramount.
There are two points which stem from that. The noble Lord, Lord Oram, said that we have a responsible Board appointed here—and he did not say, but might have said, that it might have been more responsible if my noble friend's Amendment had been taken earlier. But it is a responsible Board; therefore why do we want to qualify this instructionary paragraph? My answer is that, if the Board is a responsible Board—and I applaud the
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idea of Government expecting responsibility on the part of subordinated bodies (and we have been talking about that in relation to another Bill)—what is the need to have this paragraph to tell it what to do? The Government think it necessary to guide it. They guide it—and if noble Lords will bear with me and look at the Bill they will find various unqualified subjective statements—with such phrases as that in line 16, subsection 2(a):
"classifications are satisfactory".
Satisfactory in what way? And in the following line:
"could with advantage".
With advantage to whom? Going on to line 25:
"dock workers are adequately deployed".
What is "adequately"?
There is no overriding guiding phrase to show the Board what is to be at the background of its thinking when it uses these subjective phrases in making its decisions and recommendations. I suggest that this particular phrase of "having regard to the public interest" is a very useful background guidance to a Board which will essentially in the main consist of people actually working there. This will be guidance that they can be conscious of when they arrive at the decisions. It will enable them to provide background definitions to these subjective phrases that I have mentioned. I suggest therefore to my noble friend that this is certainly an Amendment which is worth pressing "in the public interest".
4.55 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE: This is one of the occasions when those on the Front Benches simply act in some way as referees or spectators of duels on the Back Benches. The noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, sent up a lob and my noble friend (before I was able to do so and more effectively) smashed it right home. Obviously, in any trading economy like Britain's, the docks are a vital sector of the public interest not merely on food, although that is the most important as the staff of life, but also on every kind of economic activity. I am prepared to accept, as was I think my noble friend Lord Mottistone, some literary criticism from the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, when he castigated us for setting down a cliché, particularly as his literary criticism went

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on to describe the entire Bill as a cockeyed and placatory piece of legislation. By placatory legislation, I think he meant a piece of legislation which was there to cater for or placate one special interest. That we much agree with.
I do not agree with him, as my noble friend does not agree with him, that you cannot define "public interest" by an appeal to common sense. You have an appeal to common sense as to the public interest where docks are concerned regarding food and consumer interests. But we are apt sometimes to assume that public interest and consumer interests are absolutely identical. There are other interests involved publicly here. I am concerned, as one interested in the port users' associations, as to the interests of those who use ports, those whose livelihood and commercial activities—and thereby indirectly the commercial activities of the country as a whole—depend on good relations and a secure situation vis-à-vis the ports. We are worried all through this Bill, a piece of legislation whose motives we disapprove of but which we can understand—and in my wider debate on the need for public inquiry a little later I hope to go into this—that a special arrangement has been made between the Government and some principals involved which might (to put it mildy) have not as one of its foremost concerns the public interest.
Since this Part of the Bill is not concerned with the Dock Scheme but with the setting up of the Board, we want the Board set up with reference to these wider interests. I must apologise to your Lordships because, since there is so much legislation, I had to attend a brief meeting on another Bill during the last debate; but I understand from my noble friend, Lord Lyell, that the Government were more co-operative there. I appeal to the Government to accept that, while it may be that this is inelegantly phrased and something of a cliché we need something of the kind and I hope that they will look at this again.
Lord ORAM: We have had a very interesting number of points brought forward, but I must say that nothing that has been advanced diverts me from the original suggestion I made that the phrase "public interest" is too imprecise to justify writing it into the Bill. My noble
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friend Lord Shinwell made a speech which was most helpful in parts but there were other parts about which I had some doubts. But on this particular point I welcomed what he had to say. He followed the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, who used one or two phrases which I thought in fact backed up—although he did not intend this—the points that I was making. He said that all that was wanted was just to call the attention of the Board to the public interest, and that they were harmless phrases. I suggest that we want to avoid writing into legislation phrases simply because they are harmless. A phrase in an Amendment must have some purpose and not be merely harmless. It is because this phrase seems to me to be unnecessary, as well as too imprecise, that I feel I must resist the suggestion that it be accepted.
The noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, was rather stronger in thinking that it was an important phrase, not a harmless one. The noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, backed up the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, who thought that it was something of greater significance than seemed to he suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon. The noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, then went on to say that it is possible to exercise common sense in weighing up what we mean by public interest. Of course it is. Of course the Board, when it is appointed, will reach judgment on what the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, called subjective phrases. The Board will comprise people capable of exercising judgment on these phrases. That is why they will be appointed; that is their purpose, and they will know that. They will know, without the Bill having to tell them, that one of their main purposes in serving on the Board is to serve the public interest. I am not denying that there is not a public interest involved in this Bill; of course there is. The point is that it is quite unnecessary to insert it into the Bill.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Would the noble Lord not agree that, in the nature of things, in any Board of this kind—and he must have had much experience in this field, as I have—the different bodies within the Board have different interests? All these Boards are constituted of so many people taken from one source and so many from another source, and they all have

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different interests. Is it not wise to try to harness those interests in some way or other—and the words here are not ideal—so that their diverse interests are reminded within the Bill? It is all very well to say, as the noble Lord did, that the Bill is in the public interest and that is part of its purpose; but it does not say so anywhere. Would it not be a good plan if it did, because of the fact that the Board members will all have diverse interests?
Lord ORAM: I have had a short experience on one public board. There there were no interests in that sense. I accept that in this particular case some of the members come forward because they have special interests; others are there in an independent capacity. It is my experience in committee work, even though you have representatives of special interests, given an independent chairman and given a building up of the right spirit in their discussions, a board which is properly constituted of representatives of special interests can take a general view, can take the public interest into account. In this instance, given the nature of Clause 2 in general, I do not think that there will be any dubiety at all that they will act in that way.
Before the noble Lord rose, I was going to refer to one remaining point which the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, made. He was on to this special interest. He said that the Bill was very much designed to serve special interests. I do not deny—indeed, it is clear as I said in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone—that the special interests of dock workers and employers are of course involved. As was explained at Second Reading and spelt out again by my noble friend Lord Jacques in connection with the discussion we had on the consumer interests, right through the Bill there are safeguards, so that through the exercise of those safeguards it will not be possible for the special interests—though I admit that they are there—to exercise powers to the detriment of the public at large. Therefore it is not that I am against the general tone of the debate of this issue, but I rest on the fact that these words are unnecessary and imprecise. It would be unwise to put in words simply with as little justification as that put forward. That is why I suggest that we pass on without accepting this Amendment.
5.8 p.m.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: I came into the Committee late and apologise for that. Inevitably, I have missed much of the debate. I hope your Lordships will nevertheless forgive me, because I came to the Committee specially because of the intention, as I understood it, of the Government to resist these words. These words are not imprecise. These words are not unnecessary. I joined the other place in 1945 when my noble friend Lord Shinwell produced the first of the great nationalisation Bills, the details about which all of us have had second thoughts since. We always thought that it was important to make it clear that we were not introducing a syndicalist idea—which old Socialists like my noble friend and I will understand—but we were trying to move ownership from sectional interests to the people. The public interest means just exactly that.
The way that this Bill has been conceived and has had birth is, let us all be clear, to satisfy one particular sectional interest. It happens to be a sectional interest to which I personally belong. I have a fully paid-up card in my pocket to show that I do. But it makes it a non-necessarily public interest. The interests of this particular sectional interest might well be contrary to those of the general public. My noble friend who spent so long in the Co-operative movement, knows as well as I do the difference between sectional and general public interests. Unless it is said that is what you are after, nobody could ever challenge in a court of law or anywhere else whatever they do.
It puzzles me that a Co-operative and Labour Peer, with as long a background in the movement as my noble friend has, could read out such a brief with all the evidence of believing it. We would never take it from the Conservatives if they were to do it. We would never take it from the shipowners if they were to do it. Why do we take it just because one specific special interest on our side is saying it? There are trade union members of this House who are not here today who are as unhappy with it as I am, and I make no bones about it to the noble Lord. I want a situation to exist where, at the end of the day, what is done by the authority could be challenged on the basis that clearly it was against the public interest—that is, the consumers, the users and all the rest of us—although it

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might well have been in the interests of the specific special interest.
I repeat, no nationalisation Bill was ever put through between 1945 when I entered the House, and 1970 when I was ejected, withoug the saving words, "it must be in the public interest". If the noble Lord persists in that, then I hope that other noble Lords in this House will join with me, a Socialist, in saying I am not a syndicalist. I am not a trade union hack. I believe many things are better done publicly owned than privately owned, but I want it to be shown that they are done in the interests of the public, all of us, the rest of us, and not just in the interests of the Transport and General Workers' Union.
I apologise again for coming late but I simply wanted to put this view as strongly as I could, as a Socialist, as a trade unionist. It would be terrible if we started to write legislation like they did in the Duma in Russia, like the Soviets do, where it is not the peasant or the worker or the consumer who matters, it is the few who decide it is in their interests. I say to my noble friend, "Do at least persuade your colleagues to think about it again. If you do not say that, please let us carry the Amendment".
5.13 p.m.
Lord WIGG: I will not keep the Committee for more than a few moments. I did not intend to speak either, but I did intend to vote, and if I had not intended to vote when I came, then the Minister would have convinced me, I having listened to him, that I should vote against the Government, because he used some quite remarkable words. He talked about imprecision and harmless words. I share the view of the noble Lord who has just spoken. I, too, came into the House of Commons in 1945 and I, too, am a Socialist, without prefix or suffix. By that I mean that the public good must always prevail. In a democratic society industries or boards must be answerable to a Minister who in turn is answerable to Parliament in precise terms. The words that are here are as imprecise as anything could be. "There shall be reports from time to time." What does the Minister do when he gets the reports from time to time? Put them in the waste-paper basket? He has not even got to come back to the House, whereas the noble Lord, Lord George
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Brown, made the point that from 1945 onwards the keynote of the nationalisation measures was that boards were answerable to a Minister of Parliament.
As it happens, I have had practical experience over a considerable number of years of a Bill in which Parliament laid it down in the most precise terms that activities that were carried on had to be approved. Section 25 of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act says that activities and schemes must be approved by the Secretary of State. Until I became Chairman of the Levy Board that section was ignored in toto because on the Board were the Jockey Club representatives and they conceived that that legislation on the Statute Book had been enacted so that the Levy Board would collect the money and the Jockey Club would spend it. From September, 1961, until November, 1967, therefore, that provision was completely and utterly ignored. None of the reports were ever debated though they were tabled in both Houses. That meant that every act of the Levy Board over that period of six years could have been challenged in the courts, but they were not. The Minister had no positive duty to look to see whether the provision was being carried out. It was not being carried out and it took three years of very hard work to prepare a Statutory Instrument. That Statutory Instrument was not signed until May, 1970, when the present Prime Minister was Home Secretary.
That is what happens when there is a measure laying down the requirement that the approval of a Minister is necessary, the Board do nothing about it, and there is nobody there to make them. Whereas with this provision about "from time to time" they may or may not tell a Minister and when the Minister is told he can please himself whether he sticks the report behind his clock, puts it in the wastepaper basket, or sends it back and refuses to take delivery. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, that this is a very dangerous provision indeed, and I hope that the Minister will go back to his right honourable friends and remind them of their past, remind them, as the noble Lord says, of the measures which were enacted from 1945 onwards, and ensure that whatever the Board is—whether it is the Jockey Club, whether it

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is plebeian in its background or aristocratic—it must be answerable to Parliament through a Minister. I do not know whether this Amendment will be put to a Division or not but I hope it is, and if it is my vote will he cast with that of the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown.
Lord BOOTHBY: I want to say only one sentence. I think the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, has made a very remarkable and significant speech this afternoon. I agree with every word of it. I do not know whether it will make any difference, but I should just like to say that I cannot add to his arguments but I support them in full.
The EARL of GOWRIE: I confess that until I heard the recent speeches I was disposed to hold my own fire—what your Lordships would wish to do is in your Lordships' hands, not mine—until we returned to some of the themes raised by this particular debate in my appeal later on for a public inquiry. But it seems to me that one of the purposes of a Committee stage is that one should not just nail to the mast the flag of one's particular Amendment but listen carefully to what everyone has to say. We have had three or four really remarkable interventions and my own advice to the Committee—if your Lordships would be kind enough to heed it—would be that we should ask the Minister whether he feels he could not strengthen my phrase "the public interest" to let it meet some of the strong feelings which have been so eloquently expressed here today. My feeling is that if he cannot give us this undertaking we should divide on the issue.
Lord ORAM: As the noble Lord has said, since I spoke last we have had some very remarkable and powerful interventions. I found it a little ironic, as perhaps he did too, that my noble friend Lord George-Brown, who came into the Socialist movement through the trade union movement and indeed the trade union which is very much involved with this Bill, is today speaking so powerfully in support of the general public interest, whereas I, who came into the Socialist movement through the Co-operative movement, so conscious of its consumer base in this country and of the general relationship between consumer representation and
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public interest, should be taking a somewhat different view on this question.
I have listened to what has been said and recall that even when the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, introduced the Amendment he linked it with the previous debate on consumer representation, pointing out that there were some similarities on these issues. The noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, also pointed to the connection between the consumer interest, more specifically, and the general public interest. During the second part of the debate I was very conscious of the fact that my noble friend Lord Jacques had undertaken to have another look at the consumer interest aspect of this matter. Therefore, I should like to suggest to your Lordships that, in conjunction with the reconsideration of the consumer interest, we might have the opportunity also to look again at the public interest. That does not mean that I retract anything I said about the imprecise nature of this proposal, despite what was said by my noble friend Lord Wigg. It is not a phrase which is easily defined. Nevertheless, I recognise the connection between the consumer interest and the public interest, and I think it would be a little illogical for us to agree to take back the one and not the other. Therefore, if it is agreeable to your Lordships, I will give such an undertaking and hope that noble Lords opposite, on that basis, will not press their Amendment.
The EARL of GOWRIE: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.24 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN Lord DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 2, line 28, leave out ("disposition") and insert ("deployment").
The noble Lord said: At first sight, this Amendment seems to be only a "verbal" Amendment, but is is rather more than that. My object in moving it is, first of all, to clarify the meaning of the word "disposition" and also to clarify the intention and effect of the subsection in the context of which this word appears. We are dealing here with another matter which the Board has to keep under review, which is:
"the need (if any) to adjust the strength and disposition of the labour force:".
My Amendment would substitute the word "deployment" for "disposition". I could understand the need to adjust the strength of the labour force if I knew what the Government meant by that term. Do they mean the registered dock workers, or do they mean something else? If they mean something else, what is it that is meant? What do the words "disposition of the labour force" mean? What are the Board being asked to review? If the phrase means where the labour force is located and how it is distributed throughout the country, would not "deployment" or even "distribution" be better words? After all, "deployment" is used in the previous paragraph, so I feel entitled to ask what difference is intended between "deployment" and "distribution". If there is a difference, may we know what it is? If there is no difference, why confuse the issue by using a different word?
The third point is this: The Board are required to submit reports from time to time to the Secretary of State, together with proposals for action. If the strength of the labour force in one Dock Labour Scheme area is more than is needed, while the strength of the labour force in another Dock Labour Scheme area is less than is needed, is it envisaged that the Board would propose the transfer of registered dock workers from one area to the other? In other words, do the Government see the dock labour force as mobile, in much the same way as units of Her Majesty's Forces are mobile?
When I looked at this paragraph I was very much reminded of military parlance and history, because there is a distinctly military, if not Marxist, flavour about it. I am not thinking at the moment so much of mobility within the Dock Labour Scheme area. It is possible, though costly in terms of travelling time, to move dockers from one port to another or from one establishment to another within an area, without uprooting them from their homes. But very different considerations arise when it is a question of moving dockers from one area to another, such as the willingness of the dockers to move, the arrangements to assist them to move, what happens if they decline to move and how that would affect any redundancy rights and payments.
It would help the Committee very much in their consideration of the Bill if we could have an explanation of what is in the Government's mind so far as the phrase "disposition of the labour force" is concerned. I am assuming that "disposition" is used in the sense of deployment and not in its more common meaning of "temperament, attitude, morale". It may be that the Government intend to cover both meanings, and that the Board should report on the morale and attitude of the labour force as well as on its location. There might indeed be some good in that, too. If my assumption is wrong, would the Government make it clear that by "disposition" they mean "deployment" and not "temperament, attitude and morale"? If the latter is what they mean, would it not be better to use a word which does not have two meanings or, in other words, to use the word "deployment"?
To sum up, are the words "labour force" intended to cover registered dock workers, including perhaps the extension register, or do they have a wider meaning? Secondly, is it envisaged that the Board could make proposals for moving dock workers from a Dock Labour Scheme area where there are more dockworkers than are needed, to another area where there is a deficiency? Thirdly, what is the word "disposition" intended to mean?
Lord ORAM: I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, has explained that his Amendment goes rather wider than mere semantics regarding the meaning of these two words. While contemplating the Amendment, I had thought that there was not much difference between the two words. Indeed, towards the end of his speech the noble Lord returned to the point that in dictionary terms there is not much difference between the word "disposition" which is included in the Bill and the word "deployment" which he seeks to insert.
The noble Lord raised two points of substance in connection with his Amendment. My answer to him with regard to the meaning of "labour force" is that it is that group of employees which would he engaged on work which is classified under the provisions of the Bill as dock work. The Board would be able to make proposals regarding the disposition or deployment—I personally believe that there is no

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great difference between the two words—of that labour force from one part of the country to another. That is not to say that those proposals would involve the dragooning of any groups of workers from one place to another. Included in those proposals would be the methods whereby the Board would suggest to the Secretary of State that any imbalance could be properly overcome. It would be well within the competence of the Board to examine the disposition of the labour force and to make proposals for the rectification of anything that was wrong.
If I may return to the actual use of one word or the other. if one consults all the dictionaries I do not think that there will be found to be much difference—indeed, scarcely any difference—between the meaning of the two words, but if there is any difference then I think that the balance is in favour of the word which is included in the Bill; namely, "disposition". The word "disposition" implies the current situation and it is the current situation which might need to be adjusted, whereas "deployment"—I do not make much of this—carries with it the connotation that movement of some kind has taken place. What is intended by the wording is the examination of the current situation. Therefore I return to the point that although I welcome the noble Lord's inquiries on the points that I regard as of greater substance, there is no great difference between the two words and that, in so far as there is any difference, there is virtue in retaining the word which is already printed in the Bill.
Lord DRUMALBYN: Obviously I do not want to press this Amendment to a Division and I am grateful to the noble Lord for the explanation that he has given. It was particularly interesting to hear that the Government envisage the possibility that the National Dock Labour Board may make proposals for the transfer of dock workers from one Dock Labour Scheme area to another. This will no doubt influence our thinking, although I am not certain that there will be any occasion upon which to pursue the matter very much further until we receive the new Dock Labour Scheme.
Having said that, I am not going to press this word. However, I thought that
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it was worth making the point that there is some possibility of the word being misunderstood and possibly even misused, and that perhaps it would have been more natural to use "deployment" instead of a rather recherché word like "disposition".
Viscount SIMON: Before the noble Lord withdraws his Amendment, may I make one suggestion to the noble Lord the Minister. If the skills, aptitudes and experience of dock workers can be deployed, they can be deployed only if the dock workers themselves are deployed because they cannot be deployed in any other way. It seems to me that it would be worth while for the Government to look at the question of whether or not "deployment" is a better word to use, because it picks up the word from the previous paragraph. Either or both of those words may involve movement or not movement.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I take the point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Simon. It is indeed a point which I made and it seems to me that for that reason alone one should stick to the word "deployment". However, I do not feel inclined to press the Amendment to a Division. I am confident that the noble Lord will take a look at the matter because I know that all that we say is looked at again before the next stage. I am not asking the noble Lord to make any commitment whatsoever about it but merely to bear it in mind. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Secretary of State to prepare new Scheme]:
5.8 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 4, line 3, at end insert—
("() if before the expiration of the sixty days referred to in paragraph (b) above an objection is received by him from any person appearing to him to be affected by the draft Scheme, and is not withdrawn, proceed in accordance with the provisions of Schedule (Public Inquiries) to this Act; and ")
The noble Earl said: We come now to what will, I imagine, turn out to be the first of three major debates on Clause 4 which, from the point of view of those of us who sit on this side of the House, is certainly the most contentious part of a generally rather contentious Bill. Some of the remarks that I shall make during the next few minutes on the first of my set of Amendments—and I will give the numbers to your Lordships in a moment—may have been covered to some degree in the references during the debate so far to the public interest, to consumer interest and the like. However, I do not want the Committee to think that that is the particular tack which I am after. I feel that these interests will be best served by the procedure of a public inquiry into the very radical extension of dock rights and Dock Labour Schemes which we have at present, particularly because the method of public inquiry is with us at the moment in the existing scheme.
In these opening remarks I propose to address myself not only to Amendment No. 9 which has been called, but also to Amendments Nos. 32 and 66 and to the new Schedule which stands in my name and those of my colleagues and which appears after Schedule 4. As I think will be apparent from what has been said so far on this side of the Committee, we have strong reservations about the proposed composition of the National Dock Labour Board, although we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Oram, for appreciating at least some of these reservations and for his undertaking that he will look at them again. But now we come to our reservations about a different part of the Bill altogether which has nothing to do directly with the Board, although the Board will administer it. This is the Dock Labour Scheme which the Secretary of State is enabled by the huge powers that he is given under the Bill to bring about.
Not only does the Bill still give enormous power to the National Dock Labour Board and to the way that it is constituted but, as I have just said, it goes against existing legislation by which there is at least the right to a public inquiry before changes are made to the scope of the scheme. That right to public inquiry is now to he done away with and those of your Lordships who have been concerned with the
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public interest, whether loosely or tightly defined, in my contention shoud show yourselves very reluctant that it should be done away with in this manner. I think you should be reluctant to do away with it, particularly when we are all agreed, in all parts of the House, that this is a very massive change; a massive extension of any previous Dock Labour Scheme. We shall discover just how massive when we come to the next in this series of debates, which is the debate on the five-mile limit or the zone.
I think the Committee would follow me in saying that a change of this nature in the legislative content and in the legislative procedure needs a justification of a heavy kind from the Government. If we were in this Committee tonight applying the Private Bill procedure, as opposed to the Public Bill procedure, I need hardly remind your Lordships that the situation would, of course, be different. Under the Private Bill procedure, evidence and objections could be heard by those sitting on an appropriate Committee, but this opportunity is not open under the procedure proposed in the Bill, and that means that we must consider it at some length and in considerable detail in the Committee here this evening.
Whatever the merits may be or, to take up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, earlier, whatever the political exigencies may be about this massive extension of the dockers' corridor over a large part of the United Kingdom which is not at present generally associated with docklands, I do not think anyone can dispute that the new area over which dockers will have jurisdiction, de jure, if not, as the Secretary of State insists, always de facto, should not cause a great deal of concern to the enormous amount of differing interests, companies', consumers' and the whole gamut. It seems to me that it is wrong that this new Dock Labour Scheme—which, after all, the Bill only enables the Secretary of State to set up; we do not have the Scheme before us—should, when it appears, go through Parliament merely on Affirmative Resolution. I contend that the public inquiry route, which is the route that presently is available for extension of dock labour schemes, should obtain here as well.
Even if there are those of us, notably perhaps on the other side of the House,

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who may approve the political principles underlying the new Scheme, or what we imagine will underlie the new Scheme, we acknowledge, I think, that the effects are great and manifold on the different bodies and interests in the entire country. Having said that, I am sensible that Committee stage is not the place for Second Reading speeches, but in a Bill which contains, as the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, told us and as I think the speech of the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, reinforced, a great deal of political content—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Oram, also acknowledged that earlier—it will be difficult I think, for me not to make some reference to some of the political motivation behind the Bill, and I want to do so particularly because I am not altogether out of sympathy with some of the motives behind an extension of the Dock Labour Scheme.
My objections are, of course, to this particular extension, and I am asking your Lordships' Committee to take it on trust for the moment that my objection and the objections of my colleagues during the three major debates are not doctrinaire and are not on principle. All of us with any knowledge or experience of labour relations or employment matters have considerable sympathy with any group of people, wherever they should be, who have found their livelihoods changed by technological innovation. We differ, many of us, on what kind of solutions to provide, how we should respond to these changes, and I think at Second Reading—and unfortunately I was abroad and could not attend, but I have read the Report—the noble Lords on the Liberal Benches very forcefully made the point that in their view, as indeed in ours, the response to those technical and technological changes should be in the form of compensation, as presently exists, and also in retraining facilities and the like.
But we are in agreement that the recent history of the ports has seen a considerable reduction in the registered dock force—a reduction, I understand, of over 30,000 men over the Scheme as a whole in the last five years. That is obviously something of a social upheaval to those who work in the docks and we must be sympathetic and responsive to such an upheaval. I do not think anybody would make out that dockers, any more than
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miners, or Tories, or even noble Lords, were angels on occasion, but we do acknowledge that there are elements in their past history which justify sometimes their somewhat extreme and strong views. We know from individual psychology, from our personal lives, that insecurity can make us aggressive, and the past history of casual labour is a wound, I should have thought, in the docking cycle, and the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, acknowledged that. But the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, also pointed out that this quarrel or this wound, was to some degree over; that we have had schemes from 1946 and again in 1967 which have tackled the casual labour problem and the present Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, acknowledged, is really a rather different thing altogether.
I want the Committee to recognise, if they will be so kind, that I follow my noble friend, Lord Aldington, and others in recognising the reality of the problem. Where I differ from noble Lords opposite, the Government, on this Bill, is in how the problem should be tackled. Against the reduction in job opportunities, and particularly industrial job opportunities which I mentioned earlier, it is not easy to see how, by merely trying to redefine dock work, as the Bill does, one can solve the problem of surplus dockers or how one can solve the problems which have hit those rather close, tightly-knit, if not politically motivated, dockland communities which dockers take pride in and which give their profession, their work, its special character.
Where we do not agree is that by taking over jobs which are at present not in the dockers' bailiwick we are really in the long term going to serve their interests; and in the short term, particularly in these days, we are certainly not going to serve the public or the national interest. There are those who believe that the preservation of traditional dock labour and of the craftsmanship and pride, the honour, if you like, of dockers, should be the major consideration in this Bill. Of course I acknowledge the importance of pride in one's profession and one's work, in good performance in that work but, again, I do not think that this kind of emotion can be catered for in a scheme which has such wide and public economic importance. We would not do that, for example, should there be a war

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on. I do not want to use further clichés or make further appeals to the Dunkirk spirit, but I think all of us are agreed that economically at any rate our backs are to the wall at this particular time.
We shall argue that we do not think that the Bill as at present constituted will bring a necessary change in job security or make a long-term contribution to the efficiency and economic wellbeing of the docklands. We believe that if we are to get this change, the wider interests, the other interests, other port users and the like, must have their say and that the best procedure for this would be by means of a public inquiry as at present obtains.
There are other interests involved in the docks than dockers. There are also other interests involved in the docks than consumers. Let us take other groups of workers—and we shall be hearing more about this when we come to debate the zone. We on this side of the House are certain that there will be an increase in demarcation disputes. As a result of the Bill dockers will surely wish to bring to tribunals instances of jobs which they think they should have but which they are being denied, and that, it seems to me, is why there should be an overriding tribunal in the form of a public inquiry, if you like, to see whether this Bill is to function as even the Government intend it should.
I have just given an example drawn from employees, from other sets of workers. May I quickly give an example from the other side, from the employers. I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to the cold storage industry, which has already been mentioned this afternoon in the context of the importance to our kind of community, country and economy of the import and export of raw materials, principally the import of food. We know that this industry has also, like the dock industry generally, gone through considerable changes in recent years; that it is a hybrid industry. Its traditional trade in refrigerated cargoes, in food as a raw material, has rapidly declined. Since 1967 the cold storage industry has expanded, I understand, by nine-fold, and that is a large amount in under ten years. It is housing at present more than a million tons of the nation's food supply and it is now a long-term public cold storage industry. This industry is no longer associated even to a modest
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degree with the traditional handling of refrigerated cargoes. Some parts of the cold storage industry, I acknowledge, still handle refrigerated cargoes, but the question of definition must be applied to the industry as a whole and we do not know what the proposed Dock Labour Scheme will do vis-a-vis this vital public industry.
It has been argued by the industry that the cold storage part of the frozen food industry, which has, as I have said, developed rapidly since 1967, is now an important part of the nation's larder and is quite separate from traditional dock handling of refrigerated cargo. Nothing in the present Bill acknowledges that this separation need be taken into account. I would agree, anticipating the response, with the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, or the noble Lord, Lord Oram, that that kind of special account might not be able effectively to be written into the Bill, but it seems to me that before we can make the Bill actual we shall have to know more about what kind of vital consumer and public interests are maybe affected by the Scheme which this part of the Bill enables the Secretary of State to set up. And, surely, the way we do things at present, by public inquiry, is the best way to find out.
The ex-Secretary of State for Employment, Mr. Michael Foot, seems to have acknowledged on Second Reading at any rate in another place the point I am making. He said that:
"… long-established warehousing, storage packaging and cold storage operations, which are not related directly to work transferred from the docks and which are not connected with port operations, would most certainly not be classified as dock work and, therefore, subject to the new scheme."[Official Report, Commons, 26/7/76, col. 267.]
That would seem to be encouraging, that in Committee stage in another place there seems to have been a certain degree of Ministerial backtracking on this commitment, and of course the post of Secretary of State for Employment has changed.
We on this side of the House seek a categorical assurance that the Bill will contain some kind of definition or the possibility of there being at a later stage a definition which, where a large industry is at stake, would enable an exception as important as this one—and there are other exceptions—to be made. And to clear

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up what the then Secretary of State, Mr. Foot, meant, I think that a public inquiry would also be useful.
I want to talk finally about publicity. Normally, when we deal with a Bill in Committee, the country as a whole knows a certain amount of what the Bill is about. I would contend that this Bill conceals under a superficially reasonable desire to protect dock workers from recent technological change many very comprehensive changes affecting everybody in the country which are not at present very widely known, and we believe that a public inquiry would also have the effect of making these known.
That, in brief, is why I want the Amendment in principle and in my closing remarks I will submit to your Lordships how I suggest it might be in detail. We want to provide for the holding of a public inquiry at which reasonable objections are raised to a scheme. We consider it a retrograde step in the Bill as it now stands that this is not so. The enabling Act which the Secretary of State is seeking to replace with a more powerful measure is the Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act 1946. That Act enabled provision to be made for a scheme ensuring greater regularity of employment for dock workers and for securing that an adequate number of dock workers were available for the efficient performance of their work. The provision of particular relevance to the present position is Section 2(6), which states that:
"A scheme shall not take effect until embodied in an order made by the Minister in accordance with the provisions of the Schedule to this Act …"
That Schedule lays down the procedure whereby the Secretary of State prepares and publishes a draft order embodying the Scheme and allows a period of 40 days for written objections. If objections are made and not withdrawn, he must then cause inquiries to be made. After considering the result of inquiries, he may make the order either in terms of the draft or subject to such modifications as he is prepared to propose. The Schedule places a statutory obligation on the Secretary of State to appoint an impartial person—and your Lordships must remember that this Bill has been acknowledged to be partial as between those involved in the dock industry on both sides of the
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industry—to conduct such inquiries and report thereon to the Minister.
The 1946 Act placed strict legal restrictions on dock work employment by giving a monopoly to registered employers and registered dock workers, and Parliament, by recognising the case for providing a right to objection and a right to public inquiry into the terms and scope of the Scheme, acknowledged already at that time that that was a far-reaching change. The changes involved this afternoon, I think we are all agreed, are even more extensive and important to our commercial and trading future, and that is why we present the case for a public inquiry into them. I beg to move.
6 p.m.
Lord ORAM: The noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, ranged very wide in the earlier part of his speech. He explained why he wished to do so, and I make no complaint about that. He explained why he was unable to be with us at the Second Reading and naturally he was anxious to preface his moving of this main Amendment with an expression of his views on the Bill as a whole. I am coming to appreciate very much the more relaxed attitude that your Lordships take to these matters, compared with the rather stringent rules with which I was familiar in another place. Indeed, during the Summer I had some responsibility for the Weights and Measures Bill which was going through your Lordships' House and I recall that we then had a Second Reading debate almost at the drop of a hat. I understand and I make no complaint about the nature of the speech made by the noble Earl, but I think he will equally understand that I shall not attempt to reply to his more general observations at this stage. I shall confine myself to the provisions of the Amendment and that part of his speech which dealt specifically with it, namely, the reasons why he and his noble friends think that the public inquiry procedure should be added to the procedures already contained in the Bill. The noble Earl indicated that in his mind this Amendment should be read—and I entirely agree with him—with the proposed new Schedule on the public inquiry, and I agree also that Amendment No. 32 needs to be taken into account when we are considering this particular Amendment to Clause 4.

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I think the noble Earl will recognise that this Amendment is substantially the same as one which was moved at the Committee stage in another place, and that applies also to the linked Amendments. The public inquiry procedure proposed in the new Schedule closely follows that provided for in the Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act 1946; and indeed the noble Earl specifically referred to the 1946 Act and regretted that the public inquiry procedure in that Act was being discontinued in this Bill. But, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said during the discussions in Committee in another place, we believe that the procedure in Clause 4 of this Bill improves on the procedure of the 1946 Act. Under that Act the Secretary of State was required to prepare a draft embodying the scheme, to give notice where copies could be obtained, to allow not less than 40 days for objections, then to appoint the public inquiry and in the light of the results of that inquiry to make an order, either in terms of the draft or subject to such modifications as he thought fit; and the order under the 1946 Scheme was subject—and I stress this—to the Negative Resolution procedure.
We believe that to establish such a public inquiry is no substitute for proper Parliamentary scrutiny and debate, not only on the laying of a scheme before the House but in the case of any subsequent amendment to it, and consequently the Bill provides that the draft new Scheme and any amendments later which might be made to it will be subject to the Affirmative Resolution procedure. Although the Bill does not expressly provide for this, the draft of the new Scheme will in practice be drawn up after consultation with the Board and with those interests represented on it and after taking account of any views expressed by those concerned with the industry. A few bodies have already commented on matters which the Bill proposes should be for the new Scheme, and any further views of this kind would of course be welcomed. The formal procedure in the Bill for representations to be made about the draft of the Scheme to the Secretary of State and for the draft to be amended, if appropriate, gives further opportunity for the views of those who may be affected by the operation of this Scheme to be made known and to be taken
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into account. Subsequently, as I have said, there will have to be the Affirmative Resolution in both Houses of Parliament to approve the draft Scheme.
I believe that these procedures allow full opportunity for the interests concerned to make their views known; to provide for a public inquiry in addition would make the procedure unnecessarily cumbersome. The report of a public inquiry in any case would simply be an additional factor which the Secretary of State would have to take into account in considering whether and in what way to amend the draft Scheme. He could not—and the new Schedule does not propose that he should—be obliged to make any particular changes as a result of the inquiry. He could completely disregard the views of such an inquiry. Therefore the Government believe that in this context the public inquiry procedure would be time-consuming, cumbersome and unnecessary, and it is for those reasons that I recommend your Lordships not to approve this Amendment.
Lord WIGODER: We are dealing here with a very wide range of activities which are open to the Secretary of State. They include the preparing of the draft new Dock Labour Scheme under Clause 4, with all that it entails, and we are considering also the possibility of his amending the Scheme under Clause 4(9) by altering the boundaries of the area, and so forth, which is covered by Amendment No. 32, which in a sense is, I think, consequential upon this one. It means in fact that we are dealing with a vast area where a large number of major decisions are to be taken which can, and indeed will, affect the livelihoods of a large number of people. It will mean that decisions will have to be taken by those people as to whether they should start business in a particular area, whether they should expand their business, whether they should move to a different area, whether they should close down their business. All decisions of that nature will affect not only the employers but also obviously the employees, who are vitally concerned in such decisions.
In those circumstances we would venture to support very strongly the proposal that those decisions should not be made without a public inquiry being held first, and we venture to suggest that that is

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desirable for three reasons. The first is because a public inquiry contains the element of publicity which the present proposals do not contain—the present proposals in fact will all take place behind closed doors. Secondly, if in the result there are public inquiries and decisions are eventually arrived at, the probabilities are that there will be a consistency about the decisions, which otherwise will not be known and not appreciated. Thirdly, a public inquiry gives the opportunity which the present proposals do not give not only for putting forward representations on one's own case but for answering publicly the representations that are made on the case that is made against one, or on differing or parallel cases. In all those circumstances, we would suggest that the public inquiry proposal is a very substantial advance, and an important advance, on the proposal made in the Bill. Indeed, it would, I think, lead to people whose interests are being materially affected, both employers and employees, feeling that so far as possible justice is being seen to he done, which can never happen under the procedures which are proposed.
I make only one further comment, and that is this. It is suggested that it is an adequate safeguard that there should be approval by Affirmative Resolution of both Houses of Parliament. I could wish that that were so, but apart from the political realities, which mean that in fact an Affirmative Resolution these days is not necessarily a protection to the rights of the individuals who are affected by the Resolution, there is, is there not, a procedural difficulty—and I shall be corrected if I am wrong—in that it is not open to either House to amend an Affirmative Resolution. It must either be accepted or rejected en bloc. That would clearly be undesirable where the Resolution might contain matters of the detail that one envisages in these cases. In those circumstances, I hope your Lordships will agree that the public inquiry system is really an essential safeguard for the individuals likely to be affected by the Bill.
Lord LYELL: If it is in order to give strong support to my noble friend Lord Gowrie, the noble Lord, Lord Oram, said that he felt the new arrangement in
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Clause 4 would be an improvement on the existing method of a public inquiry. The noble Lord went on to point out that there would be Parliamentary scrutiny. But I am sure he takes the point from the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, that such Parliamentary scrutiny could often mean in practice—and particularly in the Session in which we are now engaged—that a very important measure for a particular area could easily be looked at towards dawn, or very late one night. Parliamentary scrutiny is an excellent idea, but the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has really shown up the fact that the political realities of such an idea are gravely defective.
The noble Lord, Lord Oram, also went on to say that the public inquiry might give the Secretary of State further insight into the conditions. Does the noble Lord regard it as likely that were such a public inquiry to be set up and to come out with a very strong recommendation, that the Secretary of State would totally reject the advice emanating from such a public inquiry? That was what I understood the noble Lord to mean, but perhaps I have got it wrong.
Lord ORAM: I said he could; I did not say he would.
Lord LYELL: I am grateful for that. Therefore, there is more than a minute possibility that the Secretary of State might do this. We feel that this is a very grave defect. Of course, in the three major speeches so far we have heard of the totally new concept of what is involved in dock work and everything to do with cargo handling. We are to believe that it would require a very radical review of everything to do with the livelihood of the many thousands of people who are concerned in what might turn out to be dock work should this Bill pass through Parliament in its present state.
I really must concur with the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, on this point. I believe that he produced three very good reasons for having a public inquiry. By far the strongest is the opportunity for conflicting interests to be cross-examined publicly in that particular area, geographical or elsewhere, where the interests of dock work and cargo handling is most important to those who are

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concerned. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Oram, thinks that this public inquiry system that he believes is written into the Bill in Clause 4 in its present form is satisfactory, because quite frankly, we cannot agree.
6.15 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: There is one point I should like to add. A draft Scheme may affect different parts of the country very differently. Surely it may be necessary to hold public inquiries in different parts of the country. I doubt whether Scotland would he happy not to have a public inquiry under the draft Scheme, and probably the same would apply for Wales. But a public inquiry would bring out these differences, these different approaches. This must be of benefit to the Secretary of State himself, because under the Bill, in subsection (2) of Clause 4, once he has made a decision and obtained the approval of Parliament as to what the Scheme should be, the Secretary of State then has to make orders bringing that Scheme into force for areas designated by the orders.
We do not know what the areas designated by the orders will be. One would hope that at any rate this would be brought out in the course of the public inquiry. In any case, it would enable the Secretary of State to see from the public inquiry which areas were suitable in which to bring the Scheme into effect. It would be a great help to him. It is clear from the Bill that it is not intended—at least, I hope it is not—to bring the Scheme into all areas at once. It would show the Secretary of State what areas it could be brought into right away, which areas with some delay, and which areas not at all. This in itself would be of great benefit to the Secretary of State. This is not a matter just of the conflicting interests of different bodies, trade unions and the like; it is a matter of the conflicting interests of the areas which have also to be taken into account.
Lord MOTTISTONE: I should like to add to what my noble friends and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, have said, but in going backwards, as it were, and doing away with the previous procedure, are the Government not working against the natural feelings of the country? Do
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not people now expect to have public inquiries for major matters which affect their lives? Does not the Dock Scheme potentially affect more people, more deeply, than, shall we say, a motorway? A motorway may displace some people's houses and may affect some farmers, but a docks scheme can make a tremendous difference to the work prospects not only of the dock workers, but more especially of the people who are not dock workers. Therefore, is it not wise, with the general feeling of the country, to think that people in localities which might be affected by major Government schemes, or schemes of Government immediate dependencies like the Dock Labour Board, should be subject to open inquiry and that all the people who might be affected should he given a chance to have a say?
As to the question of Affirmative Resolution by both Houses, the noble Lord, Lord Oram, will remember that only on Monday night at supper time, he and I were facing each other across this Chamber with such an order. He may remember that at that time this was a very small thing affecting relatively far fewer people than would a dock scheme. At that time, the main point which came out—and I think other noble Lords were in agreement on this—was that there had not been enough consultation with the people principally concerned, facing each other, as they would in a public inquiry, before this order came through and therefore the order was faulty. But we could not do anything about it because it could not be amended. Therefore, I suggest to the noble Lord that this is really something in which the Government need to keep up with the times rather than descending into the myths of past years.
Lord ORAM: Noble Lords who have taken part in this debate visibly have considerably less faith than I personally have in the value of our Parliamentary procedures. I recognise, of course, that there are difficulties in our procedures. One was mentioned a moment ago by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, about the inability to amend an order when it is before Parliament. But I believe that many of the objectives which noble Lords are seeking through their advocacy of a public inquiry can be achieved, and better achieved, through Parliamentary scrutiny, Parliamentary debate.
The Earl of GOWRIE: May I make a point before the noble Lord moves on from that point. I am most grateful to him. How can he take this line, when scrutiny of this very Bill by another place was guillotined to the extent that something of the order of a third of the discussion on it was lost.
Lord ORAM: I can take this line because many Sittings were devoted to it; a great deal of scrutiny was given to it. But with a Parliamentary timetable such as we inevitably have—
The Earl of GOWRIE: Exactly.
Lord ORAM: —I fully admit that there are difficulties. The whole procedures of Parliament are capable of being improved. Indeed, I recall that when I first became a Member of Parliament many years ago, I had the temerity to bring about the setting up of a Committee on procedure, and some minor changes took place. We are always seeking, of course, to improve our procedures, and constantly battling against the enormously increased amount of public business that necessarily comes before Parliament. I am not denying that there are difficulties involved, as the noble Earl says, in guillotine procedures and so on. But despite all these difficulties, I claim that our Parliamentary procedures are the best way of examining Public Acts and the best way of informing the public. The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, asked for publicity. I believe that the best publicity is that which is directed at the proceedings in Parliament.
Lord WIGODER: If the noble Lord will allow me, I am sure he appreciates that the Amendment we are supporting does not prevent the Parliamentary scrutiny that he is proposing.
Lord ORAM: Yes; I am coming to that point. I recognise that the Amendment does not eliminate that process and put the public inquiry in its place. Noble Lords want both belt and braces in this matter, and I understand their caution in these matters.
That brings me to what I believe is a major argument against accepting this proposal. As was agreed earlier, this Amendment needs to be looked at not just for what it says, but in conjunction
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with the Schedule and in conjunction with Amendment No. 32. I am not at all sure that those who are responsible for these three suggestions have looked at the complete picture that would emerge if all three were written into the Bill.
It is worth my taking a little of your Lordships' time to explain the complex of procedures that would emerge if the Bill were to be amended in the three-fold way suggested. First, there would be the preparation in draft of the Scheme. Secondly, there would be the publication of a notice giving at least 60 days for representations to be made to the Secretary of State about the Scheme; that is the second stage. The third stage—if the Schedule were written into the Bill—would be that that procedure of the new Scheme would have to be operated; that is to say, if there were objections during the 60-day period and they were not withdrawn; that would be provided for under Amendment No. 32. That is the third stage. The fourth stage would be another publication of the Scheme—presumably that is what is intended—this time specifying a further period of 40 days within which representations may be made about it. Then would come the public inquiry, which is the main objective of this Amendment.
After all that, the Secretary of State would consider all that had gone on and publish a report; and then, and only then, would we come to the draft Scheme being before Parliament, except that even then he may make such alterations as he thinks expedient in the light of representations made during the first period of consultations. This, frankly, I believe to be laying procedure upon procedure, and would not bring about justice. It is more likely to bring about injustice. It amounts, in my view, almost to what might be called procedural sabotage of any Scheme that might be brought forward. I am not suggesting that those who have put forward these Amendments have sabotage of the Scheme as their objective, but I insist that that would be to a large extent the effect of what they are proposing.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: May I ask the noble Lord, before we go any further, whether he heard or has read the very powerful speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, the other day on the Parliamentary procedure which the noble Lord himself seems to be

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in favour of? If I may say so, with great respect, the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, had a great deal of experience in another place in a very powerful position, more experience than even the noble Lord who is answering this Amendment. In fact, I never heard the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, make a speech like that in the whole of my time in another place. He felt so strongly about it, so powerful was his speech and so powerful were his feelings about the procedure in another place that, if I remember rightly, he even voted with my Party in the Lobby. All I want to know is whether the noble Lord, Lord Oram, has read the speech, and whether he still feels as strongly that the procedure in the House of Commons is so suitable on a matter of this kind? If he has not read it, perhaps he will read it and do something about it.
Lord ORAM: I do not need to read it, because I had the good fortune of listening to it.
Baroness WARD of NORTH TYNESIDE: Did it not affect you?
Lord ORAM: Speeches by my noble friend Lord Houghton always affect me, just as speeches by the noble Baroness always affect me. It does not mean to say that I necessarily agree with my noble friend Lord Houghton, any more than I always agree with the noble Baroness. Of course, what she says is right; anything my noble friend says on these matters needs to be listened to with great attention. But I do not think that that gainsays what I said in more general terms about Parliament itself being the best forum to ensure that the public interest is served.
6.30 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I wonder whether the noble Lord has looked over the records to see how often a debate on an Affirmative Resolution lasts more than an hour or two hours. Is that enough to cover this case? Can he really say that this is an adequate way of discussing a matter of this kind? If Parliament is going to do this sort of job, what very often happens is that there is a Green Paper first and we debate that, as we have been doing with prices orders on occasion, and then later we take the order itself. But merely to have an Affirmative Resolution really gets one no further at
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all. If the subject is of that importance, it does not much matter whether it is an Affirmative or a Negative Resolution, it will get debated; but merely to rely on the Affirmative Resolution procedure is not a suitable way of dealing with a matter like this, because this is absolutely the end of the road, where there is no possibility of amendment, whereas the whole purpose of an inquiry is to suggest to the Secretary of State changes that may be made, or indeed to get the proposal withdrawn altogether. In most of the cases the inquiry results in some modifications in the proposals, and that cannot possibly be done in the case of the Affirmative Resolution procedure.
Lord ORAM: With the Affirmative Resolution procedure, the actual debate is, as the noble Lord says, the end of the road; it is the end of a process. It is the end of a Parliamentary process as well as of all the other processes which are involved in this Bill in drawing up the Scheme, publishing it, giving publicity to it, and so on. It is the final stage. Before that, as the noble Lord knows, there are plenty of opportunities for the business interests concerned to make representations through their Members of Parliament, or indeed through Members of your Lordships' House. The noble Lord, speaking earlier, made the point that circumstances differ from area to area. Those areas have their local Members of Parliament, and during the process of preparing the order there is full opportunity for these representations to be made. I am not claiming that this procedure, or indeed any other procedure in Parliament, is perfect; what I am saying is that it is a superior procedure to that proposed by the Amendment.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: Could the noble Lord clarify one point on the proposed procedure? If we are to have an order made under Affirmative Resolution it is unlikely that there is going to be a separate order for every new area and town designated. Many of those towns will be of 100,000 or 250,000 people, and there must be many thousands of communities that can, under this Bill, be brought by this procedure into the authority of the new port. It seems to me unlikely that we are going to have separate orders for every town. Therefore it is more likely that we shall have regional

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orders saying, perhaps, that from Hull northwards, or for the whole of the West Country, the zone shall include the named towns. If, with an Affirmative Resolution order, we can only reject the whole, how on earth do we make representations where an order may include possibly 40 towns, of which the Government's proposals for the area make sense in perhaps 30 of them and absolute nonsense in the other 10? We are going to be accused of wrecking tactics when we do not accept the areas where it makes sense, and we shall find it completely impossible to try to exclude an area which makes palpable nonsense.
Lord ORAM: I suggest that the noble Baroness is ignoring a great deal of the contents of the Bill now before the Committee. This is not the time to go into it, but we shall be coming later to Clause 7 in particular and other clauses which lay down an elaborate procedure whereby all the local circumstances in relation to dock labour can be put forward and carefully examined before the Scheme is drawn up. If this Bill is enacted there is no danger at all that local considerations will not be given the fullest examination.
Viscount SIMON: What I want to say may not be very popular in your Lordships' House, but I feel that while the noble Lord, Lord Oram, is perfectly right in saying that Parliament is the best forum we have for discussing and deciding on Public Acts, when it comes to detailed matters of the sort that will have to be included in a Scheme of this nature I very much doubt whether either House of Parliament—I must be careful in what I say about another place—or whether your Lordships' House is really a suitable place in which to discuss across the Floor of the House the details of the Scheme.
It seems to me, if I may draw an analogy, that it is rather similar to what we do with Private Bills which affect a large number of private interests. We do not discuss these across the Floor of the House because we recognise that the House, sitting as a House, is not really a suitable body to discuss this sort of thing. It is far better for the details of the Scheme to be examined at a public inquiry where the various interests can make their representations and where, as some noble
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Lords have already said, they can be cross-examined and can equally cross-examine the views of the other people, and it can be done in public. By the time a draft Scheme comes to your Lordships' House of the complexity of this Scheme, we shall no doubt debate it to the best of our ability but I very much doubt whether we are really competent to discuss it intelligently.
6.37 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I really feel that the noble Lord, Lord Oram, made my case for me. He said that we wanted both belt and braces. I think that this time we have caught the Government with their pants down. The noble Lords' colleagues in another place are in a shambles with their legislative programme. Whatever one thinks of this Bill, and we do not think highly of it, it is a very important Bill. Some of the motives behind it, as I argued earlier, stemming from the Jones/Aldington Report on London, we even acknowledge, but it certainly has not had proper scrutiny in the House of Commons. I think that we do no insult or injury to ourselves to acknowledge what the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, has just said about our capabilities in going into so many regional and local divergencies in this House. That point was also made by my noble friend Lady Hornsby-Smith.
I want to take up quickly one or two points the noble Lord made because they really show our case in a clearer light than I can. He said that there would be time before the Scheme was set up for interested parties to make their views known. Exactly, but their views are to be known, to be scrutinised, by the Secretary of State and by the Board and not by Parliament. Parliament will only have the Affirmative Resolution procedure to fall back on. Earlier this afternoon the noble Lord, Lord Oram, said that the Board would be required to make consultations, but he did not say with whom or what about. We have an enormous enabling Bill, giving to the Secretary of State greater powers over one area of employment than any other Bill on the Statute Book, and we are working in the dark about it. That was one of the reasons why the Bill ran into such trouble in Committee, and in another place. It is not usual for a Government Bill of this importance to achieve draws

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in Committee in another place where the casting vote in favour of the Government is given by a Conservative Chairman. That happened in many instances on this Bill, and many union members, working people as well as employers and other interests, object to it severely.
Lord Oram said that the Secretary of State could disregard the views of such a public inquiry. Of course he could; but my noble friend Lord Lyell pounced on that point. The Minister knows very well that it would be politically much too hot for the Secretary of State absolutely to disregard such views, and of course we could make life very unpleasant for him if he did. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wigoder, will forgive me emphasising a valuable point he made when he implied that the political realities of the present day are rather different. Naturally, I believe that my honourable and right honourable friends will be returned with a splendid majority; all the indications are that way. However, one would be a very arrogant Conservative to assume that our days of small majorities in Parliament, our days of high Parliamentary representation by minority Parties, are absolutely over. We know that the forthcoming legislative Session will be involved with devolutionary and other matters. It is not good enough to say that all is for the best and in the best of all Parliamentary worlds at the present time. If a public inquiry is not needed, as the noble Lord said—if it is a kind of superfluous, pernickety, pedantic insistence on our part—why does it obtain under a piece of Socialist legislation now? What I am arguing is that we do not get rid of something we have and something which the noble Lord and his right honourable friends found necessary when first considering the interests of dockland.
On the wider point, we all agree that the implications of the Bill are much wider than most people outside realised at the time of Second Reading, and that is why it has caused considerable contention and disagreement between individual union members. I do not say that with any air of triumph. It is not a condemna
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tion of individual unions to disagree with each other; in our economic system the function of unions is, to some degree, competitive. However, many trade unions and individual branches within one union, such as the Transport and General Workers' Union, have realised that their interests may be disparately affected by the Bill and I would guess that they would wish to seek to make representations under a public inquiry procedure. They have this procedure now. Why should they be denied it under the Bill?
In short, we are saying that we should proceed by the methods we have always used in this matter; that is to say, a public inquiry. I do not want to raise the temperature of the Committee. The Minister has been agreeable and we have had some amusing and delightful exchanges, but the noble Lord was totally unconvincing in his reply and took no account even of the earlier debates we had about the public interest. We feel that what the noble Lord and the Secretary of State for Employment must learn is that the many interests in the cargo handling industry and the small ports, to which we will come later, among other groups of employers and employees are disparately affected by the Bill.
We believe that the problems of business in this country and our present economic crisis can only be exacerbated by it, and that will not go unnoticed by people. Nevertheless, we still have an opportunity in this Committee for the noble Lord to allay our anxieties, and perhaps to allay some of the anxieties rampant among all groups on both sides of industry in the dockland industries, by accepting the Amendment, which is designed principally only to retain a well-tried procedure and which we think this extension justifies. I cannot understand why the Minister is being so stubborn about it.
6.45 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 9) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 116; Not-Contents, 54.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Gisborough, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Gladwyn, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Amory, V.

Glasgow, E.

Onslow, E.

Ampthill, L.

Goschen, V.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Armstrong, L.

Gowrie, E.

Platt, L.

Ashdown, L.

Gray, L.

Redesdale, L.

Auckland, L.

Greenway, L.

Rochdale, V.

Balerno, L.

Grey, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Banks, L.

Gridley, L.

St. Davids, V.

Barrington, V.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Salisbury, M.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hawke, L.

Sandford, L.

Berkeley, B.

Hives, L.

Sandys, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Seear, B.

Broadbridge, L.

Ilchester, E.

Selkirk, E.

Burnham, L.

Inglewood, L.

Selsdon, L.

Byers, L.

Kemsley, V.

Semphill, Ly.

Caithness, E.

Killearn, L.

Simon, V.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Kimberley, E.

Skelmersdale, L.

Carr of Hadley, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Somers, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Spens, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Craigavon, V.

Long, V.

Strathclyde, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Loudoun, C.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Crawshaw, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Cromartie, E.

Luke, L.

Sudeley, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lyell, L.

Swansea, L.

de Clifford, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Terrington, L.

De Freyne, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Tranmire, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

McNair, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Deramore, L.

Mancroft, L.

Vickers, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Marley, L.

Vivian, L.

Dundee, E.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Wade, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Merrivale, L.

Ward of North Tyneside, B.

Elles, B.

Monck, V.

Ward of Witley, V.

Elton, L.

Morris, L.

Wardington, L.

Emmet of Amberley, B.

Mottistone, L.

Wigoder, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Windlesham, L.

Garner, L.

Northchurch, B.

Winstanley, L.

George-Brown, L.

Norwich, V.

NOT-CONTENTS

Bacon, B.

Jacques, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Blyton, L.

Janner, L.

Segal, L.

Bolton, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Shinwell, L.

Brimelow, L.

Leatherland, L.

Slater, L.

Brockway, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Stedman, B. [Teller.]

Champion, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Collison, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Stone, L.

Cooper of Stockton Heath, L.

McCluskey, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Maelor, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.

Melchett, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

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

Milner of Leeds, L.

Vaizey, L.

Gardiner, L.

Oram, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

Pannel, L.

Wells-Pestell, L. [Teller.]

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Willis, L.

Hale, L.

Peddie, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Phillips, B.

Wynne-Jones, L.

Henderson, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Raglan, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
6.53 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI: I suggest this may be a good moment to halt the Committee for an hour—that is, until 7.55—in order
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to take other business. I therefore beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

CHRONICALLY SICK AND DISABLED PERSONS (AMEND MENT) (No. 2) BILL
Lord TAYLOR of MANSFIELD: My Lords, in moving that this Bill be now read a third time, I would say only that I should like to express my appreciation of and gratitude for the co-operation of your Lordships in getting this Bill through so expediously. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Lord Taylor of Mansfield.)
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND MATRIMONIAL PROCEEDINGS BILL
6.55 p.m.
Baroness PHILLIPS: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time, and in doing so I should like to express my deep appreciation of the co-operation and assistance I have recevied from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. Equally, I should like to pay tribute to the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, who had certain reservations about one clause in the Bill but who very generously did not press an Amendment knowing that it might well have resulted in the Bill failing to be passed into legislation this Session. I should also like to express my appreciation on that account to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, who is always very kind, and who, again, gave me great assistance.
I think it is relevant to say that a short leader in the Sunday People last week highlighted this problem by a heading:
"Battered wives need help now",
and there was a plea, in describing just such a case as we have been discussing, that we should get this legislation on the Statute Book as rapidly as possible. I am grateful to those noble Lords who have made it possible for this to be done so speedily, and I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Baroness Phillips.)
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I hope the House will allow me to say a word or two about this. In addition to the compli-
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ments and thanks which have been expressed by the noble Baroness to others, I should like to say how grateful to her are those of us who have come across the kind of difficulties that this Bill is intended to remedy, for the extremely interesting and efficient manner in which she not only introduced this Bill but has persevered in bringing it to a conclusion which I think will be acceptable to all Parties in both Houses.
I hope the noble Baroness will herself forgive me if I take this opportunity to say that this is only one example of the very important work that she has been doing for very many years, and to tell her how deeply appreciative are those who have benefited from her services to the community for the activities in which she has participated. I have had the privilege of knowing her for many years. We were on different sides in political life at one time, but that was a very long time ago. I think she has forgiven me, as I have forgiven her. Certainly what she has done in the meanwhile has fully justified any forgiveness that anybody would want to offer her for any disagreement which may have taken place.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, I, too, should like to say to the noble Baroness, to whom I have already spoken outside, that I welcome this Bill very much, but I was not particularly happy with what I may call one side of it which, to my mind, rather tends to make legal the unfortunate situation which is now beginning to appear in which couples tend to go and live as man and wife and claim protection under this Bill. The noble and learned Lord, when I asked him about this matter on Second Reading, said that they have this protection at the present time; but here we are writing into a Bill a principle which I find very difficult to accept in some ways. We are in fact covering two people who live together as man and wife when they are perhaps in a position to become man and wife. They may be doing it just to see whether it works or because one of the parties will lose money if they get married.
I can appreciate a situation where two people, as happened to many before the present divorce laws, find it impossible to get married. Those people in these circumstances I would not hesitate to include in the protection of this Bill. I can appreciate that there will be humanitarian grounds on

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which people cannot get married. A wife who is in a mental institution, who has been there for years but is recovering and who, when she comes out, finds that she has been divorced and her husband has remarried, may well in those circumstances have a relapse. My Lords, I have no wish to delay this Bill in any way. I specifically put down no Amendment on Committee stage for I did not want to delay the Bill, but I feel that in subsection (2) of Clause 1 we may be taking a step which will lower the standard of life in this country.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I do not know whether it falls to me to reply to the point the noble Lord has just raised. We went into this question at an earlier stage in the discussion of the Bill. The fact that emerged from the evidence given to the Select Committee on Violence in Marriage was that women living with men in the relationship of husband and wife, although not married, are equally subjected to acts of violence. Those situations unfortunately were sufficiently frequent to justify doing what the Bill does. If my recollection of an earlier discussion of this matter is right, I believe that we have a certain amount of (shall I say?) ecclesiastical dispensation for including this provision in the Bill. It was not thought to be endangering the foundations of the institution of marriage if we did so, but it would have the effect of protecting otherwise unfortunate women who would have to go through the difficult procedures of an injunction instead of getting the quick remedy that this Bill, when it becomes an Act, will provide.
My Lords, may I say before I resume my seat on the Woolsack how grateful I am, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Phillips, to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, and others who have been complimented by my noble friend for having assisted in the speedy passage of this Bill, and I congratulate her on skilfully steering it through the House.
On Question, Bill read 3a, and passed.
[The Sitting was adjourned from 7.4 p.m. to 7.55 p.m.]

DOCK WORK REGULATION BILL
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do again resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Strabolgi.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House again in Committee accordingly.
[The BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE in the Chair.]
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 4, leave out lines 11 and 12.
The noble Earl said: I must apologise to the Committee, because I have for the moment mislaid my list of Amendments; but I can say that we are now going to debate the arena of the five-mile zone. What I am unable to tell the Committee at the present time are the Amendments that I wish to take with this Amendment. They are consequential, and I thought it would be courtesy if I could outline them as a package. Perhaps my noble friend Lord Lyell will be able to give me the information.
Lord JACQUES: May I suggest that the noble Earl takes Amendments Nos. 10, 11, and 12 and then any consequential Amendments after that can be moved formally.
The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Baroness Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie): I think it is incumbent upon me to say that Amendment No. 11 will fall because it is superseded by a later Amendment.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, for his intervention, which I hope is an indication of the post-prandial wellbeing and calm which is going to reign in this Committee from now on. Quoting from memory, we have Amendments Nos. 11(A) and 11(B). I will be taking with Amendment No. 11(A) the Amendments enumerated by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques. Amendments No. 11(A) and the consequential Amendments by the noble Lord, Lord

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Jacques, cover the debate upon the five-mile zone. Amendment No. 11(B) concerns the small ports and will be dealt with by my noble friend Lord Lyell.
It was clear from the debate before we adjourned that we felt very strongly about the public inquiry and the issues that were raised by such far-reaching changes in legislation as are proposed in the Bill. If we felt strongly about that, we feel a great deal more strongly—if that is possible—about the question of the five-mile zone. This formula derives from a relatively innocent attempt to solve a dispute within the London docks region. It theoretically gives to the Scheme which the Secretary of State is empowered under the Bill to propose, the possibility of declaring virtually every part of the British Isles, and all activities in this connection that take place within the British Isles, as if they were a dock area. It is this part of the Scheme which has caused such outside consternation, as we have seen. I am not talking simply of the political objections of my political Party, but the contentious area of one set of unions, one set of workers, feeling that their jobs and their livelihoods may be threatened by a Bill which is fundamentally drawn up to privilege another group of workers.
As I said, the reason for the five-mile limit is clear. It was originally proposed by the Bristow Committee in connection with London. That limit has now been extrapolated from London and applied to the whole country, and that is what we object to. What we now have, and in my contention in this Committee what we need to discuss, is a kind of map, not so much of a corridor but of an envelope around the whole of Britain, an envelope of five miles which at times extends into the heart of the country. I would remind the noble Lord who is to reply to this debate that this envelope would become even more sinister should there be such a thing as a national dock strike, because the five-mile envelope would effectively become a five-mile picketed or "no go" area through which port transport activities could not take place.
Those of you in the Committee who heard my earlier remarks will not, I think, believe of me that my objections to this legislation stem from any kind
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of desire to criticise or to clobber the dock workers. I have just mentioned the possibility of a national dock strike. I should be the first to acknowledge that the record in strikes of the docklands and dock workers is extremely good. It has been one of the better areas in our national industrial relations picture, if you take the long term—if you take a 50-year term. But there is no crime, no sin, in conducting a strike should you feel yourself, whether rightly or wrongly, forced to do so. What one is concerned with is not to limit the possibilities for strike action on the part of dockers but to limit it to their dispute and their profession.
It is often given out in Parliament, in the political system, in the media, that strike action takes place between groups of workers and some national establishment—employers, Parliament, Government, different political persuasions, or the like. In fact anybody with the smallest knowledge of British industrial relations knows that the vast majority of industrial disputes exists between one group of unions or workers and another. There are two points I am here contending: on the one hand this Bill is liable to increase the possibility of such inter-union disputes; and on the other hand that, as we feel may happen, should this happen the dockers will be put in a near monopoly position of the corridor which is being suggested.
I have studied as carefully as I can the Government's case for doing this. I have read what the then Minister of State, Mr. Booth, said in Committee on this issue, and we must be very aware that he is now the Secretary of State and formally responsible not only for the Bill but for the issues underlying it. I have no personal knowledge of the present Secretary of State but I know what his career has been and I know what I read. I have always thought of him as a very honest and very dedicated Parliamentary politician and someone whom, given one's political disagreements with him, one would be much more prone to respect than to have misgivings about. But in his attitude on the five-mile limit—and I accept that he is not the parent of the Bill but that his predecessor was—he displays a kind of humourless genius.
Noble Lords may be aware that at pressent there is a very successful play on in

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London by Tom Stoppard which deals with the attempts of a Parliamentary Committee to cope with the love lives of Members of the House of Commons. You would have to go to that play which is a talented piece of satire to find comparable language to that which the then Minister of State, now the Secretary of State, has been churning out in respect of his attempts to try to define the zones in this Bill. May I quote him? He says:
"The problems of determining precise boundaries of any harbour or dock estate can be quite considerable and have given rise to a number of the problems under the present Scheme where dock work is usually defined as particular types of operation within the port area or the vicinity of the port. That is the major reason why it has been considered necessary to use the mean high water mark as the point from which the five-mile limit should run rather than from ports or harbours."
He goes on:
"We have checked a number of existing ports to give some guidance to the Committee about the effect of using this criterion. We are obliged now "—
the British Government is "obliged now" in the Secretary of State's words—
"to use the metric depth of 6.1 metres as the test mark.
Poole would not qualify as it is 5.5 metres, nor would Gloucester at 3.5 metres. Western Point at 4.6 metres would not qualify nor Anderton Depot, Goole, which varies in depth at the harbour mouth from 5.2 metres to 5.5 metres; Boston, King's Lynn or Lowestoft likewise. This is a case where the harbour-mouth depth in metres would act as a barrier."
The idea of the future of the careers of the dockland community and of industrial relations as they are affected by dockland activities in this country being in the hands of a Secretary of State wandering round the coastline of England with a plumb measure really beggars description. It would mean that a major revision to this Bill may be necessary should there be some untoward silting up of an East Coast port. One would have to be trained less in contemporary drama than in St. Thomas Aquinas to follow this as a credible criterion for laying down where the writ of dockland activities should run.
I can imagine and believe that many of the Committee can imagine what might be said on this issue by noble Lords opposite were our positions reversed and we were in Government. I can imagine the noble Lord who is to reply to this debate saying, "My Lords, this is not the way to deal
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with industrial relations", or, "This is a typical Tory legalistic way of dealing with industrial relations". He would say, "You should not introduce the law into this delicate area of one union's relationship with another", or he might go on: "Have we not all learned from 1971, 1972 and 1973 that the law has no role in establishing the delicate relationship between one union and another, one group of workers and another".
I come to this next issue of the enormous potential for inter-worker disputes, inter-union disputes, which as we know lies at the heart of many of Britain's industrial relations difficulties and which is potentially created by the creation of this zone. I do not know whether your Lordships are familier with the phrase "Banana Seven". It sounds to my untutored ears rather like the name of a progressive "rock" group. In fact, it is a group of workers engaged in unloading bananas at the Geest plant in Barry. Because of comparable legislation, because of these attitudes, the employers were forced to continue to pay two groups of workers, one unloading the bananas and one which felt entitled to unload the bananas, in order to maintain industrial peace.
I would ask the Committee whether this is the way to improve our economic position at this time. We feel that the Bill can create disputes between one union and another as to who should handle work, and that there may well be a fertile area for disputes within the TGWU itself between the dockers' section and the non-dockers' section: that is what we have seen with the "Banana Seven" at Barry. These problems, I would contend, arise if work is to be reclassified as dockwork if, as we shall see later, an extension register is established and if vacancies occur on existing premises. We believe this will give rise to a fertile area for disputes. Will the Transport and General Worker member be allowed to take any vacancy that might occur? Will Lord Allen's USDAW insist on joining that union? Will the USDAW say it will not have him because he is a Transport and General member? All these possibilities for the proliferation of industrial disputes will continue, and the collective agreement may not cover the point of the closed shop, which again would mean that there would be the insertion of a Transport and General

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member. It may make it worse if two sections of that union, as I have suggested, are involved.
Your Lordships may think I am straying into rather technical areas of inter-union disputes—and I do not myself dispute that these can and do happen, because it is part of ordinary industrial relations, even in a country like Germany, where the industrial relations record is better than ours—but what will be the effect on the ways in which we earn our living? Let us take the contentious area where airports arc affected by legislation of this kind, even though it is primarily aimed at docklands.
An honourable friend of mine in another place who sits for a Scottish scat is very worried about the concern expressed to him by employees at Aberdeen Airport, and employees and employers in the oil industry who rely on helicopters plying out of Aberdeen for so many of their suppliers. I quote now from what he said in Committee in another place:
"The oil rigs are absolutely dependent on supplies, many of which come within the restrictions and criteria we have mentioned. Upon these oil rigs depend our oil development, and uncertainties are rife in those areas."
May I also in passing refer to our former debate. That is again one of the reasons why we think the public inquiry route, the existing route, is the best one. If your Lordships think that I am simply citing in my own support one of my own political persuasion, may I call to my aid the right honourable gentleman the Member for Orkney and Shetlands who commands almost universal respect in this Chamber as he does in another place—
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: If the noble Earl will forgive my intervention, I think it is a rule in this Chamber that one can only quote verbatim what a Minister has said. One can paraphrase what other Members in another place say; but I think I am right in saying that one can quote from the official record only what a Minister has said.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I think the noble Lord may well have required that I stand corrected on that. I will use my powers of paraphrase, such as they are, in relating what Mr. Grimond said. He pointed out that freight charges were by
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far the biggest burden which his constituency has to bear, and that he felt an unsuitable proportion of these charges was in fact due to dock charges. He went on to say he believed that oil servicing was being affected by restrictive practices of dockers in the area and by the expenses of moving them around. He gave as an instance the case in which a mini-bus had to be sent to unload a parcel and that the act of unloading was done by 15 dockworkers. I would emphasise, as I said earlier, that this is not an attempt to criticise, to clobber or attack people who are engaged in the valuable and legitimate activity of dock unloading, but we are aware on all sides of this Chamber that restrictive practices take place throughout British industry. We are arguing at this moment that this kind of legislation will encourage that situation to an even greater extent.
I have dealt with the possibilities created by this legislation for inter-union disputes. We do not have to be very sophisticated politically to know that there have been right royal battles between the Transport and General Workers' Union and the National Union of Railwaymen about this proposed Bill; and the fact that some of those disputes have been hushed up does not detract from their seriousness. It seems strange to many of us that a union like the National Union of Railwaymen, which has long experience of seeing the road haulage industries "stealing" their traffic, may not be encouraged by this legislation to demand that certain types of road haulage should become a monopoly of their union. I, for one, pay tribute to their restraint so far in not having made that sort of claim, but I doubt whether that present position can go on indefinitely.
It is part of our thesis on the Bill that it is highly divisive within the trade union movement itself. I am conscious that at present—though this position may not continue for very long—it is difficult for a Conservative Member of another place or of your Lordships' House to make appeals for support among union members. In our media-orientated and media-conscious civilisation, the breakdown in relations that occurred in 1974 will take a long time to die. I recognise that, as a political realist. But that does not stop my expressing the view—which is supported from the sources of information I have

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from elsewhere—that the General and Municipal Workers' Union, the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers and branches of the Transport and General Workers' Union itself, are in fact bitterly opposed to many aspects of the Bill and would like to see it modified.
The next debate we shall have, introduced by my noble friend Lord Lyell, will deal with the effects of this zone on islands and small ports. I believe that my noble friend Lord Mottistone, if he is in his place, will have something to say about the effects of this legislation on the Isle of Wight. Scottish Members in another place have been most incensed by the possible effect on the Western Isles, and again my noble friend will have something to say about that. Therefore, in trying to deal with the zone argument, we are not pre-empting what we may later say about the effects on small ports. This is extremely serious, because a mixed economy like ours—and I do not use that in a political sense, but in a commercial sense—which produces a great variety of goods on a small scale as well as on a large scale, is utterly dependent on casual labour and small ports for exporting local produce and helping to contain our balance-of-payments problems. We are concerned that this legislation will hit small ports and their activities very hard, as I think the next degate will show.
I should like to pay tribute, as others have done before in industrial relations matters concerning dockers, to the late Observer correspondent, Mr. David Wilson who, sadly, was killed in an accident two or three years ago. He wrote an important book called Dockers: the Impact of Industrial Change. What he said at page 49 of that book is as relevant today as it was when he wrote it. He was referring to the idea of a corridor. Saving the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, I think I may quote an author, if not an ordinary Member of another place. This is what he said:
"Employers feared that they might have to dismiss their own staff to take on dockers in the corridor and that wage inflation and all the worse aspects of dockland's industrial relations would follow. Working men were also worried because it affected their job rights, and the GTWU branch of the London International Freight Terminal at Stratford East threatened to tear up their union cards and join the National Union of Railwaymen en bloc if dockers entered their depots."
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We understand the Social Contract, and with qualifications, we respect it, but we do not say that it can gloss over the fact that these anxieties remain. Very little has changed and the anxieties of people working in the cold storage depots, which I cited in the last debate, for example, are heightened by having this rigid five-mile zone.
Again I am trying on purpose not simply to list to the Committee the objections of my own political Party to this legislation, although they are legion and strong. If I may paraphrase, as I think I must, an argument used by a Labour Member in another place, on the Floor of the House he asked the Secretary of State who invented the five-mile limit; he would not take any credit himself, or on the part of the union he represented, for this invention; he found it arbitrary and pointless; he was able to trace, as we all can trace, its origins to a particular dispute in London, but he contested that what was good for London was necessarily good for the rest of the country. And this is the strong part of our case.
To sum up, our Amendments, and those related to it in Schedule 3, seek to improve a controversial Bill. We consider that our proposals offer a practical alternative to the concept of the five-mile cargo handling zone, one which will be acceptable at least to those who work within the docks industry. The Amendments observe the ambition or philosophy which is apparent behind the Bill, to use the words of my noble friend Lord Mansfield at Second Reading, but they seek to achieve the aims of the Bill in a fairer and more comprehensive manner.
One of the aims of the Dock Work Regulation Bill is to improve the terms of the 1967 Dock Workers Employment Scheme in order to provide greater job opportunities for registered dock workers and to regain the traditional dock work that has moved away from the docks. The Bill sets about doing this by extending the range of work which is classifiable as dock work by means of this zone. Our view is that the extent to which the provisions of the present Bill will achieve this aim is far from clear, for as yet the Government have not published any estimate of the number of businesses and employees that would come within the

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Dock Labour Scheme. In this connection I would recommend that the Committee should cast its mind back to the point made by my noble friend Lord Drumalbyn when he said that we cannot deal by Affirmative Resolution with matters which normally would be dealt with by a Green Paper.
There can be no doubt, however, that a blanket extension of dock work to cover coastal and inland areas in addition to recognised ports would bring within the proposed Live-mile cargo handling zone many premises, some of which are far from the sea and have never been connected with dock work in any way. Such businesses would undoubtedly suffer from the restrictions of the Dock Labour Scheme, and they could face the prospect of labour surplus to their requirements being allocated by the local Dock Labour Boards. Their employees would also be faced with problems arising from being placed on the extension register, with which we shall deal later, which could be regarded as being less favourable than their previous conditions of employment. This point is often missed when the safeguarding of dock workers' rights is considered.
In our efforts to produce a rational alternative to the geographical concept of a cargo handling zone we have been in contact with representatives of both employers and employees who would be affected by the Dock Work Regulation Bill. These consultations have disclosed that the key requirement is for a pragmatic definition of the terms "dock work" and "cargo", allied to a clear definition of the phrase "port or vicinity of the port", as used in the 1967 Act. Thus, we believe that our Amendments will achieve what is required, and we suggest that they provide a much more practical and constructive alternative to the cargo handling zone concept that so damagingly is being pressed by the Government.
8.25 p.m.
Lord ORAM: When the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, began his speech there was a little confusion as to the exact scope of the debate that he was suggesting we should undertake. I gathered from his speech that he was covering Amendments Nos. 10 and 11A and that he would wish to leave for our next debate the question of small
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ports. I wonder whether I may ask the noble Earl whether I am right in making that assumption?
The Earl of GOWRIE: Yes, the noble Lord is quite right.
Lord ORAM: Then I will tailor my remarks accordingly. I have a number of reasons why I hope that the Committee will oppose the suggestion that the five-mile limit should be taken out of the Bill and the half-mile limit put in its place. However, before I move to those arguments, may I make one or two comments on the speech to which we have just listened. In his opening remarks the noble Earl did what I think was done by a number of his noble friends at Second Reading and, indeed, what has been done in newspapers and in many ways since the Bill was introduced. That is to say, the noble Earl has referred to the five-mile limit as though there were going to be an automatic extension of the classification to all jobs remotely connected with the docks within five miles of the coasts of these Islands. That is not the case, as was explained at Second Reading, and as, if need be, will be explained by my noble friend Lord Jacques when we come to later clauses of the Bill.
The second claim made by the noble Earl was that this five-mile zone will hinder rather than help industrial peace—that it will cause inter-union disputes rather than remove them. First, may I repeat a point which I made at Second Reading in relation to the suggestion that this Bill is the source of great inter-union conflict. I made the point then that different unions had different views about the Bill, particularly in its unamended form when first it arrived in the other place, but that the Transport Industries Committee of the Trades Union Congress had subsequently issued a document, signed by 12 unions involved in working in and near the docks, expressing unanimous support for the Bill. Indeed, I believe that disputes are more likely to arise if we do not have the kind of machinery which the Bill provides to enable careful consideration of the work around the docks of this country, a planned approach to it and classification after full consultation with the organisations that are representative of the workers concerned. Therefore, I believe that the

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opposite is true with regard to the point made by the noble Earl concerning industrial peace.
The third point that I should like to make relates to the noble Earl's quotation of what was said by Mr. Albert Booth and his quotations at some length of the various ports and measurements. First, may I thank him for his personal references to Mr. Booth. I have the advantage of knowing him personally, and I assure the noble Earl that what he has gleaned about Mr. Booth from afar or through reading is entirely borne out by the character of the man. I was therefore a little sorry that the noble Earl went on somewhat to poke fun, particularly since the poking fun was entirely ill placed. The various depths of 3.5 metres and the others that the noble Earl quoted, and the various ports that would be excluded under these plumbing measurements that the noble Earl referred to, do not prove that Mr. Booth was absurd. He was using those measurements in relation to an Amendment moved by one of the noble Earl's honourable friends.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My honourable friends are not so silly as to be incapable of moving Amendments to show up the absurdity of the Secretary of State's position. It was exactly what they did in that instance.
Lord ORAM: They were putting forward an Amendment somewhat similar to some that we shall be coming to later, and it was Mr. Booth's purpose in quoting those to show how absurb the Amendment was.
It is important, in our view, that this Amendment should be rejected. The suggestion that the five-mile corridor should be done away with and that there should be a different kind of measurement, of which the half-mile limit is the principal part, are two provisions that we believe are quite unacceptable. The proposed distance of half a mile is far too short for practical purposes. The Bristow Report, to which the noble Earl has referred, proposed that work of the sort accepted as dockers' work should be done by registered dockers if it was done up to five miles from the waterside. That was, I think we all agreed, the origin
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of the five-mile proposal, and the employers concurred in that conclusion.
The Earl of GOWRIE: In London.
Lord ORAM: Yes, in London. The union representatives at that point were urging a wider corridor, of ten miles, I believe. It is quite true, as the noble Lord has interjected, that the Bristow Report was concerned only with London, but the principle was established by the Bristow Report and I think it is clearly of more general application. There is nothing very special about London.
Baroness SEEAR: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but how can a quantitative measurement be a principle?
Lord ORAM: It is, as I explained on the Second Reading, the first test under which work will be classified. It is the first hurdle, if you like, and there are other hurdles which need to be leapt over before a particular job or group of jobs can be classified as dock work. I will not necessarily argue whether it is a principle or not, but it is a first good practical test. I would put it that way, perhaps, rather than as a principle. Although the Conservative Government at that time did not implement the Report, there have been examples, for instance, at the Aintree Groupage Terminal in Liverpool, which is some four miles from the waterfront, where registered dock workers have since been employed by industrial agreement. There are many other places where work which effectively replaces work formerly done by registered workers is done well over half a mile away from the docks. So it seems clear that the half-mile limit is not enough and that the five-mile limit suggested by Bristow seems to be about right. I will accept the noble Lady's point: it is not a principle; it is a pragmatic decision, but on the basis of pragmatism it does, in our judgment, seem to be about the right measurement.
The noble Earl's Amendment relies on harbours and the half-a-mile from a harbour. It is not considered that it would be practicable to limit the area within which work can be classified to an area, of whatever extent, within a given distance from harbours or harbour land. The reason is that the exact

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limits of harbours and harbour land at any particular harbour may not always be known without doubt, even at any given point of time, and the limits of harbour land will change over time, because harbour land is defined in the 1964 Act as land adjacent to a harbour and occupied wholly or mainly for the purposes of activity there carried on. In other words, premises could come within the scope, not because of deliberate policy under decision by both Houses of Parliament, as is the case with the proposed cargo-handling zone, but simply because the harbour authority had decided to add another acre or so to its existing holding. Moreover, the information the areas of harbours and harbour land is certainly not information which is generally accessible, whereas the mean high-water mark at any particular place can be determined from an Ordnance Survey map.
Those are the reasons why we believe the five-mile limit to be a practical one and why we believe the suggestion put forward in the Amendment of linking it to harbours and imposing a limit of half a mile should not be accepted by the Committee.
8.38 p.m.
Viscount SIMON: We from these Benches would certainly wish to support the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, in this Amendment, because we feel that the wide extension of the area in which decisions may be taken to classify work really makes the situation far too difficult for anyone engaged in this sort of business to appreciate fully. I accept from the noble Lord, Lord Oram, that there is no automatic extension, but to talk about a corridor all the way round the coasts of England, Scotland, and Wales really seems to me absolutely ridiculous. All of that area is then subject to the possibility that some installation within it will be classified.
I raised on Second Reading the question of whether it was possible to find out in advance whether if one put up an installation in that area it would or would not be classified, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, trying as always to be helpful, said, if I heard him right, that a person wanting to do this could judge by seeing what had been done in other
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cases; but I do not think we can rely on decisions taken by successive Secretaries of State to be always consistent with each other. It seems to me that under the present system it would be impossible to develop any warehousing business in this enormously long corridor with any certainty that one would be able to operate it under the conditions that are contemplated.
In speaking to the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, the noble Lord mentioned this question of the Secretary of State's being—as those of us who have had the privilege of knowing something about it know—a very sound person, but it does not follow that everybody who becomes Secretary of State later on is going to be so. I do not say we are legislating for an absolute fool to be Secretary of State, but without knowing who the Secretary of State will be, and the personal qualities of the present Secretary of State really do not come into the picture at all. The noble Lord went on to say—and I was interested to hear this—what had been done at the Aintree depot. That shows that without any limit at all arrangements can be made by ordinary industrial negotiation—which I understand noble Lords opposite favour—without reference to legislation, as they were, to establish work at the Ainree depot 4½ miles from Liverpool by registered dockers. If that can be done there, it can be done anywhere else where there is a case to be made, and I am surprised that the Party opposite, who have pledged themselves so much against legislation in dealing with industrial relations, should think that in this matter the queston as to whether or not registered dockers should be employed in a particular installation is a matter for legislation rather than negotiation. Why we should not have free negotiation and see what the result is?
I take the point which the noble Lord has made that it is difficult perhaps in all cases to reckon distances from harbour or harbour land, and perhaps there might be some possibility of some kind of adjustment there; but I certainly think that whatever centres are taken from which the measurement should go they cannot and should not be points on the sea which are miles from any harbour and which have nothing whatever to do with

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the handling of cargo. Consider a place like Littlehampton, which is certainly more than 5 miles from Shoreham. There are lots of pieces of our coastline which are miles from any harbour, and it seems to me to have no sense at all to think that these should be included in the zone. The noble Lord says that of course it does not follow that there will be an automatic extension. But think of the amount of work that is going to be put on the new Dock Labour Board in examining every proposal within this zone! Surely it is much easier to eliminate those enormous areas in the zone which in no conceivable circumstances could be the site of industrial enterprises of this kind. Why not take them all out? That is what the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, is suggesting in this Amendment.
I do not myself see at all why it is necessary or even useful to draw this enormous zone. We shall be coming later, I know, to talk about the small ports, but basically the problem—and I know there is a problem; I have worked with the Port of London and I know a good deal about the problem there—is about business which is transferred from within the port limits to just outside. But that does not apply at all to most of the country; it applies only to the periphery of an existing port, and it should be perfectly easy, as I see it, by way of ordinary industrial negotiation to determine where the line shoud be drawn in and around any particular port.
Even if this Amendment were accepted and the line were drawn half a mile round the port area, it would still be open, as we have already said, for negotiations to take place and for a warehouse outside that area to be manned by registered dock workers. So we warmly support this Amendment and hope that we shall be able to make some progress with the Government before we have finished the Committee stage.
Lord WIGODER: May I elaborate on only one point that my noble friend Lord Simon has made. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Oram, will agree that within the proposed five-mile zone there will be hundreds, even thousands, of employers carrying out work which corresponds to the work liad down in Part I of Schedule 3 as being work which
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may be classified. It must be of crucial importance to those employers to know whether the work is going to be classified or not in their particular place of employment because industrial decisions of great importance will turn upon that.
As I understand the Bill in its present form, if such an employer's work is not classified, does not come within the Scheme as at first drawn up, there remains power under Clause 5(9) under which the Secretary of State:
"… may from time to time make orders amending the new Scheme (either generally or in relation to one or more dock labour scheme areas), or altering the boundaries of any such area; and the powers of this section include power to consolidate the whole or any part of the Scheme as amended…"
That means, as I understand it, that at any time in the future an employer who has found that his work is not classified under the original Scheme may find that the work has subsequently been classified.
May I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Oram, if he agrees that the knowledge as to whether one's work is to be classified is of crucial importance to an employer, whether there is any way under the Bill in which an employer in the five-mile zone will ever know for certain that the work carried out at his place of employment is not going to be classified?
8.46 p.m.
Lord MOTTISTONE: I should like to explore just a little further this question of the history of the five-mile zone. My noble friend Lord Gowrie took it back to the Bristow Report, and this was generally agreed by the noble Lord, Lord Oram; but I would suspect it went back further than that, because was it not in 1962—and I am quoting now the late lamented Mr. Wilson about whom my noble friend talked—that on the American East Coast they first had this idea of zones of 50 miles? I suspect that Bristow, and perhaps the trades union members, who I understand were asking for 10 miles, got their idea from the Americans who asked for 50 miles and got it. But they got it for a coastline which is vastly more extensive than ours, for a country where the distance from one side to the other is 3,000 miles instead of about 100. And they got it only for containers in relation to a particular side of the business, whereas this Bill, if it is

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not amended, will cover a much wider area than just containers, and, what is more important, than just the jobs of the people who deal with containers.
So I suspect that we can really say that the origins of this five-mile limit, which horrifies anybody who looks at it reasonably dispassionately, are American. And when one remembers the rather scornful remarks of noble Lords opposite at the time of the Industrial Relations Act 1971, not to mention their friends and advisers in the Trades Union Congress, about importing American ideas into their Act of Parliament, and how later they went out of their way rather unreasonably to defeat it, one feels that it is a question perhaps not of the pot calling the kettle black, but of the pot making the kettle black in this particular connection, and that it really is a rather mythical beginning.
I believe, as I said in Second Reading, that one must have great sympathy for the dockers because of their past history. I suppose it sounds patronising and insulting, but I really believe that. I think also that if I were a docker I would think, "Aha, now is my moment; my Government are in power. What can I get? I can get practically anything because they all know that I can stop food coming into the country to a large extent now, let alone what more I can do. I can get much more power". Indeed, I suspect that if the Bench of the right reverend Prelates were given the potentiality of power that the dockers are promised, they too, for all their clerical leanings, would seek to get this sort of power.
The whole thing has, as it were galloped ahead by various inquiries, American precedents and one thing and another, and it has ended in a five-mile extension. The noble Lord, Lord Oram, says that it is not automatic; you cannot think of it that way; it is a wrong conception of a five-mile zone all round the country. Of course, he is absolutely right; it is not like that and, as he says, it is only to be put into effect in careful stages, even under the Bill before it has been improved. That is absolutely true. But if it is not frightfully important to have the powers there, why put them in? That is the point.
I think the Government, encouraged by a false idea of power, have captured a whole lot of past myths, added them
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together, jumbled them into this Bill and produced a potentially horrifying situation for the ordinary citizen. I am not really speaking about myself. I will not waste your Lordships' time at this stage because I shall be putting this argument more fully on Amendment No. 11B, but I have spoken to people who work in small ports and who were scared stiff. I have also spoken to people who are in quite different types of employment and whose fears after they have got to hear about this Bill I have personally sought to allay. One cannot blame it entirely on the Press. The fact is that if ever there was a case of trying to pass sledge-hammer legislation to crack a nut, this is it. It is a monstrous sledge hammer, because although there are all sorts of safeguards to make sure that it will not drop with a bang at the wrong moment and engulf some part of the country to which it does not apply, it is there, and it will always be there.
The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, indicated that sort of thing, and therefore what we are saying in this Amendment is, "Don't be so greedy". I mentioned that word rather cautiously in my Second Reading speech, but I really think it is a question of being greedy to establish a power situation from which the rest of us cannot "get from under". Even if there are safeguards, we all know, with the greatest respect, that we cannot rely on assurances which are given from a Front Bench today when in three or four years' time there may be a different Front Bench. It might even he us—who knows? You might not be able to trust us, in another sort of way. Don't, for heaven's sake, give the reigning Government more power than is necessary. It seems to me that it is quite ridiculous by means of a false historical background to create that sort of situation.
In his final point, the noble Lord, Lord Oram, said that the five-mile cargo handling zone laid down in an Act of Parliament was better because at least you knew where you were—although I think I have slightly indicated that we do not, because the threat is quite monstrous if carried to its logical conclusion. I am sure it would not be, but just suppose it were. He said that was better than having a system whereby the harbour land could be extended arbitrarily—from the point of view of Parliament—by a local port authority and thereby effectively make a

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widening of what would potentially be in our Amendment, without Parliament having any say in the matter. I am not sure that that is not a bad thing in these days. Surely there is too much centralisation of Government, and when we come to harbours and people working around them, actual dockers and other people, if you bring the law into it—and noble Lords opposite have said this—workpeople will be in conflict.
If we have this situation, is it not better that it should be handled on a local basis? And if a local port authority thinks it would be wiser to extend the harbour limits of, say, Liverpool, is it not better that it should be done locally rather than by a blanket instruction from the centre, put into effect by the Secretary of State? Do you not think that that, coupled with the ability of the Secretary of State to intervene which is still left in this Bill, coupled with the public inquiry system, which at least makes sure that there is public argument about the things which matter, is really a better balance than trying to have an arbitrary sort of limit which frightens everybody and indeed threatens them? There is no reason at all why the Secretary of State should not use his powers under the Bill, if it is not amended in the way we say, to make sure that it is only dock registered jobs which function in (shall we say?) Winchester, if it so happened that somebody was unwise enough to build a cold store within the precincts of the city of Winchester.
That is a load of rubbish and surely we ought to think more about the individual views of people rather than what power we can gain for a particular group of people who happen to have been badly treated in the past and who now have in power a Government who are sympathetic to them. Is it not better to go slowly; to go at the pace that all of us can live at, rather than rushing it along and creating a great big bogey which will frighten all of us and probably in the end would not be put into effect properly?
8.58 p.m.
Lord ORAM: There were one or two points during the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, when I was encouraged to think that I had made
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some progress, particularly when he was expounding, with commendable clarity, if I may say so, on the points that I had been trying to make that the five-mile zone does not imply automatic classification within the five-mile zone of all work connected remotely with dock work. I am sure that when he see his words in Hansard they will be well worth studying, and I hope they will be given the publicity for which the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, was earlier asking.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I am so sorry; I am afraid my voce was not sufficiently sotto. All I said during the noble Lord's speech, to myself really and I did not mean it to be heard, was nor will the classifications necessarily extend within the half-mile limit. It is quite even between the two.
Lord ORAM: It is not automatic; I have the noble Earl with me on that point.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to have my little say in the matter, and that is to hope that the further remarks will also be included in any publicity which is given to my remarks.
Lord ORAM: I was about to comment on some of those remarks. The noble Lord went on to say what a pity it was that these decisions were not going to be made locally rather than by some nationally imposed scheme. This is not the way in which it will work in practice. Information and opinion, facts and figures, will be fed in from the locality and the Board will take in the views, the decisions, the opinions and the fact of the locality in drawing up the national scheme; so it is not some super-scheme being bureaucratically imposed from above. It is in fact the case, as I said in my earlier intervention, that this five-mile zone is but the starting point for a process of careful consideration before classification takes place.
The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, said that the corridor was ridiculous, using language of a more violent kind than one usually expects from the noble Viscount. It is far from ridiculous. It is the first criterion in a series of criteria which will enable a planned extension of

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the Dock Labour Scheme to take account of modern developments. I thought I had the noble Viscount with me on this point on Second Reading. I remember he intervened and said that he agreed that the Dock Labour Scheme needs bringing up to date. I am glad that he still takes that view. That is what we are doing. We believe that because of technical changes in dock work, a properly planned extension of the Scheme is needed, and that will be brought about within the five-mile corridor.
Viscount SIMON: If the noble Lord, Lord Oram, will give way for a moment, what I meant to say and did say was that I thought the Scheme needed amendment. I think a properly worked out amendment of the Scheme is necessary, but I do not think that this is a properly worked out amendment of the Scheme.
Lord ORAM: I recognised on Second Reading that the noble Viscount was not going all the way with me, but he was admitting that the Scheme is out of date and that action is necessary to bring it up to date. Of course, we differ as to what kind of action is necessary, but I am sure that we are together on the need for action.
The only other point I need reply to is that raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, who raised the difficulty—and I admit it is a difficulty—about businessmen anywhere within the zone suffering from uncertainty because of the provision that the noble Lord read out from Clause 5, combined with the corridor provision. There will, of course, always be some element of uncertainty, but at the point when the Scheme has been produced, a good deal of uncertainty will be removed from a large number of businessmen. The variations which might subsequently take place I believe will be quite rare and quite small, so a degree of certainty will arrive when the Scheme has been promulgated and approved. But I fully accept that there will continue to be uncertainty for businessmen.
Lord WIGODER: The effect, of course, is that the Secretary of State wants to take power to extend the Scheme outside the five-mile zone.
Lord ORAM: Yes; for good and appropriate reasons. The uncertainty which
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will face businessmen must be seen against the history of dock labour as a whole. I indicated that I represented a constituency which is an important part of dockland in London. The uncertainty which the dockers suffered throughout their history was a far worse uncertainty than anything that any businessmen are likely to suffer under this Bill.
The main purpose of the Bill is to build upon the Dock Labour Scheme which the dockers treasure as the means whereby they were taken out of the dreadful conditions from which they suffered in history, into a better state of life. It is right that they should want this Scheme, upon which their welfare so much depends, to be extended and modernised. So I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, that there will be uncertainty, but at the same time a great deal of heartrending uncertainty will be removed.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I think the Committee will respect the feelings of the noble Lord, Lord Oram, and the sincerity with which he has dealt with this problem—and it is a very difficult problem—from personal experience. But surely at the present time we ought to be doing everything we possibly can to encourage investment and modernisation. Admittedly, in the past the dockers have experienced great uncertainty, but the effect of engendering uncertainty in business at the present time is to prevent investment and modernisation. One just will not get investment and modernisation if uncertainty is created. That is the first matter that must be borne in mind.
The noble Lord used a very carefully balanced phrase when he said that what the Government are aiming for is the planned extension of the Dock Labour Scheme to take account of modern developments. That is really saying that dock labour to some extent has been circumvented by people with initiative who are anxious to enable our goods to be more cheaply sold abroad and exported, and our imports to be brought in more cheaply to this country, by reducing the cargo handling charges. This is what they have done, and now the proposition is, because they have conferred this benefit on the country, their employees, and they themselves perhaps, are going to have their jobs taken away and handed over to someone

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else. This cannot be right. It cannot ever be right, unless the word "substitution" is used in the Bill.
Lord JACQUES: On what grounds does the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, say that people are going to have their jobs taken away and someone else put in their place? On what grounds does he say that? Where is the evidence for that?
Lord DRUMALBYN: If this is not so, how is it that the noble Lord was able to say, in answer to a previous Amendment of mine, that dock workers would be transferred from places where there was no work to places where there was work? That can be done only by creating vacancies. The vacancies may well be created—I do not say in every case, but they may well be created by displacing people who are at present doing jobs which are not classified when those jobs are then to be classified. The noble Lord cannot deny that.
Lord JACQUES: What my noble friend was saying was that we may get some circumstances in which there is a surplus of registered dockers at one place and a deficiency at another, and some of the surplus would be given the opportunity of going to the other place where there is work. They are not taking somebody else's work; they are going to fill vacancies which exist. I think the noble Lord made an unfair and unreasonable statement, because there is no evidence to support it.
Lord DRUMALBYN: There is no evidence because we have not yet started on the Scheme. We shall have to see how it works out. But very grave suspicions are widely held throughout the country on this; many people are in fear of losing their jobs to dockers and being replaced by them. The noble Lord cannot get away from that. We shall have to see how it works out. The noble Lord may be right or wrong; he may be right in some cases and wrong in others.
When any industry declines, there is always a temptation for those in authority to try to export their own unemployment, so to speak, by encroaching on the preserves of others. I am not in favour of preserves or shut-out situations and such like, but a man who is in a job and doing a
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job is entitled to keep it as long as there is a job to keep. If he belongs to a union he is entitled to go on belonging to that union so long as it remains in existence. It is not right to force people to switch from one union to another merely on the basis of some dogma, or five-mile zone. I remember that in a previous transport Bill an attempt was made to switch trade from the road to the rail. That proposal was dropped; it simply was not viable. Here we have a proposal for what is not at present dock work to become dock work along the lines I have suggested, in the course of taking account of modern developments. I do not think this is a reasonable or sensible proposition simply because what is proposed to be taken over is not dock work on any sensible definition.
It is very sad that so many jobs in the docks have been lost since the beginning of 1969; I believe somewhere between 24,000 and 25,000 jobs have been lost. Surely the right answer is to retrain those men for jobs that are really necessary, rather than classify some jobs artificially as dock work and then say, "Come and do that quite different job and we will call it dock work". Of course, I accept that simply because a warehouse or cold store is within the cargo-handling zone it does not follow that all the work there, or indeed any of it, will necessarily—the noble Lord says automatically, which is not quite the same thing—be classified as dock work. But it is clearly intended that all within the cargo-handling zone who have anything to do with the transport of goods are at risk.
The whole concept of a cargo-handling zone seems to be preposterous. One can say that the whole cargo-handling zone is to be a happy hunting ground for licensed poaching. In many areas there is very little to poach. Take the long indented coastlines of most of the West of Scotland and the Western Isles. Here are areas where a goodly proportion of the inhabitants have traditionally had two, three or four jobs, one of which was the handling of cargo. That is the economic way to deal with the situation. The noble Lord must not complain of ridicule about this, because the whole concept is so outrageous that I can only end by misquoting Shakespeare:

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"This happy breed of men,
This little world,
This precious stone set in a cargo-handling zone."
This girdle is obscene.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I think with my noble friend's words we have come to the end of this particular road. As I said on an earlier Amendment, I really think that once again the Government have made our case for us. We started by arguing both from these Benches and the Liberal Benches about the absurdities implicit in any geographical zone. Even our own Amendment has its absurdities. Of course we would rather not have the Bill in need of that particular Amendment at all, but at least half-a-mile is within sight of the sea and seems to have some sense to it. But, as was clear from the final speech of the noble Lord, Lord Oram,
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
what is really at issue here, what is really the Government's intention, is to redress what they feel to be a present evil, or imagined evil, felt by the dock workers. If this is the case why set the limit at five miles, which in any case the Secretary of State can extend, so far as I can see, at whim? I think that my noble friends Lord Mottistone and Lord Drumalbyn, more eloquently than I can, have pointed out the absurdity, and beyond that the great danger in this section of the Bill, and I would therefore like to press my Amendment.
9.15 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 10) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 72; Not-Contents, 34.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Glasgow, E.

Northchurch, B.

Ampthill, L.

Gowrie, E.

O'Hagan, L.

Armstrong, L.

Gray, L.

Onslow, E.

Auckland, L.

Hacking, L.

Rochdale, V.

Balerno, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Barrington, V.

Hawke, L.

St. Davids, V.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Hives, L.

Salisbury, M.

Berkeley, B.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Sandys, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Inglewood, L.

Seear, B.

Byers, L.

Kemsley, V.

Sempill, Ly.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Killearn, L.

Simon, V.

Carrington, L.

Limerick, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Long, V.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Colville of Culross, V.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Sudeley, L.

Cromartie, E.

Lyell, L.

Swansea, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Tranmire, L.

de Clifford, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Trefgarne, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Merrivale, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Deramore, L.

Monck, V.

Vickers, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Monson, L.

Vivian, L.

Elles, B.

Morris, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mottistone, L.

Wigoder, L.

Elton, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller.]

Windlesham, L.

Ferrers, E.

Gisborough, L.

Newall, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Birk, B.

Jacques, L.

Peddie, L.

Blyton, L.

Janner, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Brimelow, L.

Kagan, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Brockway, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Stedman, B. [Teller.]

Champion, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Collison, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

McCluskey, L.

Taylor, of Mansfield, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Maelor, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Delacourt-Smith of Alteryn, B.

Melchett, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Winterbottom, L. [Teller.]

Hirshfield, L.

Oram, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy-Seal.)

The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: I shall not call Amendment No. 11 as it has been replaced by Amendments Nos. 11A, 11B, 11C and the manuscript Amendment No. 11D. I therefore call Amendment No. 11A on the supplementary Marshalled List.
I understand that Amendment No. 11A is not moved. So I call Amendment No. 11B.
9.24 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 11B:
Page 4, line 12, at end insert—
("(2C) The new dock labour Scheme shall not apply to a small harbour or to any place within half a mile (in a direct line) of a small harbour, being a place which is not also within a similar distance of a harbour to which this Act applies.
(2D) In subsection (2C) above "small harbour" means a harbour or wharf—

(a) at which the hours worked in the twelve months ended 3rd December 1975 by a person in loading cargo into, or unloading cargo from, ships did not exceed (on being averaged with the hours so worked by other persons so engaged during that period) 1,350; or

(b) which cannot, at mean high water, accommodate ships of a gross registered tonnage more than 1,000 tons;

and for the purposes of this subsection "cargo" and "ship" mean the same as in Schedule 3 to this Act.").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 11A not being moved, in moving this Amendment it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I were to speak at the same time to Amendment No. 11B and to the manuscript Amendment No. 11D, which is an Amendment not on the Supplementary List but which I hope is in the hands of all members of the Committee.
Amendments Nos. 11B and 11D together seek to remove the smaller ports from the Bill, and I am sure that the Committee will bear with me while I explain the many reasons behind this proposal. Noble Lords will notice that under these two Amendments there are three criteria for the exclusion from the Bill of the small or smaller ports. First, we find the criterion of the hours worked in loading or unloading cargo from a ship at the port or harbour. Secondly, there is an alternative criterion of the size of the vessel according to its gross registered tonnage. Thirdly, in the Amendment to the main Amendment, the manuscript Amendment, we have taken as a criterion
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for excluding other ports from the provisions of the Bill those ports which already surpass the aims of the proposed Scheme. We shall of course be touching on other aspects of this at a later stage, but, in the main, those ports in this last category have grown in importance, particularly to the local communities served by them, since the newest Scheme was incorporated in 1967.
Indeed, the Minister in another place was at pains to point out that in almost all cases the ports, the wharves or the harbours that we are discussing have complemented rather than harmed the adjoining Scheme ports. I have many examples in mind, but the Committee would not expect me or any other Lord, I hope, to have a really firm grasp of the conditions at the 395, I think it is, non-Scheme ports in the United Kingdom, or indeed of the 123 non-Scheme ports in Scotland. Noble Lords will not be surprised that the North Sea oil service traffic has made a great difference to many of the smaller ports in Scotland, and indeed in the North-East and the Eastern seaboard of England. But, of course, often new skills and techniques are needed in these ports and in this particular traffic. These new skills which have been acquired at these new ports, apart from being developed within the last five years, are constantly changing.
Perhaps the Committee would like me to consider the three criteria for excluding the small ports. The question of the gross registered tonnage of ships handled at any of the non-Scheme ports, harbours or wharves is particularly germane to the Scheme. As we shall be seeing when we come to consider Clause 5, the objects of the Scheme include reference to regularising and stabilising dock work, not to mention decasualisation. Nowhere in that clause, nor elsewhere in the Bill, can we find any reference to the conditions which ought to, and which do, pertain at the small local harbours: but in most of these the pattern of trade is sporadic, it is seasonal or, indeed, it is irregular, or sometimes it is a combination of all these. Often these patterns are determined by geographic reasons; for example, shallow waters around the harbour, or perhaps difficult access to the harbour, wharf or port by road or even by rail, or possibly even by the trade carried on in the areas which are served by such a small port.
In most of the cases that could be covered by such examples, the trade could not possibly justify the engagement of a permanent labour force to carry out dock work either loading or unloading cargo, or indeed in carrying out general work which would not come within the category of stevedoring. One example concerns a small port in North Wales where timber if often loaded. There, the traffic is sporadic; the port is too small to take ships which go beyond 1,500 gross registered tons; and indeed, the facilities for both loading and unloading are more than adequate for the traffic. The users of this port are almost entirely small transport concerns which carry goods to or from the port when the need arises. The traffic into and, indeed, out of the port is the concern of the area within a radius of approximately 30 miles from the port. What would be the point of laying down conditions whereby the Scheme applies when the work of the port is done at present by skilled workers at the appropriate times?
What would be the point of causing port users at this particular port inordinate expense when they can obtain first-class service and often of a standard envisaged by the Scheme, but provided by persons able to work elsewhere when a port cannot open or offer them this employment? What would be the point of forcing present port users to take their traffic and trade to a Scheme port when such a change would increase their costs, sometimes doubling and occasionally trebling them? No noble Lord can conceive that such is the intention of the Scheme, yet we believe this would be the effect were this port and others like it to be included under the provisions of the Scheme. Also, there arc the hours worked at others of the 390-odd non-Scheme ports. The reason that the Amendment mentions an upper limit of 1,350 hours is broadly similar to the main reason for our alteration in respect of tonnage and small vessels.
Many ports and piers, landing stages and wharves, lie in what could be called deep or less shallow waters. Yet the other conditions I mentioned are equally relevant. The pattern of traffic is either seasonal or spasmodic, it may be local or just unorthodox. There are dozens of examples to be found, particularly in Scotland or in the South-West, Devon or
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Cornwall, where a port or wharf or quay could be said to provide an extension of inland transport. There are cargoes of, say, bulk liquids or cement or machinery which cannot travel as cheaply by roll on-roll off methods; and these can only be loaded or unloaded, for instance, in the Western Isles of Scotland or at remote corners of the mainland, by crane or other conventional methods. This is the kind of work that the dock workers in the Scheme ports carry out; yet the periods when such work can he carried out in small ports is limited, often by tidal considerations. Clearly, to have the Scheme applied to such small ports and such places would mean that they would no longer he able to offer their existing service at current prices.
The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, never said that the intention of the Scheme was to raise prices anywhere. I think he would agree with this. If the Scheme were to apply to these small ports, quays or landing stages the service would become very inefficient and far more costly. Life is difficult and expensive enough in these areas, remote from the main stream of our life. Surely the Scheme cannot be intended to apply to islands and these remote communities. Yet we understand it is going to do exactly this, or there is a risk that it may do so.
The third category in these group of Amendments is that of ports which are at present non-Scheme ports and which are already offering to their dock workers conditions of permanent employment. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, mentioned that the Bill seeks to end casualisation of labour forces. I believe that we have a perfect example with such ports. These ports were mentioned by the right honourable gentleman, Mr. Prior, the Member for Lowestoft in another place, at the Committee stage. He drew attention to the Lloyd Williams Report in 1960 and how it considered that very strong reasons would be needed to change the status of a particular port in this category; how the Scheme is now, and how it was then, intended to guarantee permanent employment. So far as I can understand, such conditions apply at a number of, but not all, non-Scheme ports which cannot he categorised as small.
In many of these ports the pattern of trade has changed radically since 1967

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when the last Scheme was brought into operation and the pattern of trade has changed rapidly in the last three years, At many ports, other non-dock services are provided. Indeed, without these non-dock services, much of the port traffic would be inhibited. Can the Scheme be intended to choke off trade in these ports?
The arguments I have mentioned for small tonnage ports are equally relevant; namely, that much traffic at these ports is complementary to that arising from Scheme ports, and that in many cases capacity to handle such traffic at the Scheme ports is limited or indeed nonexistent, and the imposition of the Scheme at these non-Scheme ports on such a port as I have mentioned would gravely affect trade in the area served by it. I cannot believe that the Government intend the Scheme to work in this way at any of these categories of small—or shall I call them "smaller"?—ports. For this reason, I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name.
The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: Amendment proposed: Page 4, line 12, at end insert the words printed on the Marshalled List, to which there is an Amendment No. 11C in the name of Lord Mottistone.
Lord MOTTISTONE: I was hoping not to take Amendment No. 11C with Amendment No. 11B. With the permission of the Committee, I should like to take that after we have dealt with Amendment Nos. 11B and 11D.
The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: The Amendments should be taken seriatim. It should be Amendment 11C and then Amendment 11D. If it is the unanimous wish of the Committee, we will take Amendment No. 11D.
Lord MOTTISTONE: I was not aware that my noble friend was going to move Amendment No. 11D with Amendment No. 11B.
Lord LYELL: I spoke to Amendment No. 11B and 11D together. I only moved, I hope, Amendment No. 11B.
The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: That is quite
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correct. The noble Lord had only moved Amendment No. 11B. Once the Question has been put for the first time, one takes the first Amendment to the main Question and the first Amendment is Amendment No. 11C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone. When that is disposed of, we take Amendment No. 11D, the Manuscript Amendment.
9.37 p.m.
Lord MOTTISTONE Lord MOTTISTONE moved, as an Amendment to the Amendment, Amendment No. 11C:
In subsection (2D)(b), line 2, leave out ("1,000") and insert ("1,750")
The noble Lord said: According to the procedure, I must move Amendment No. 11C. I apologise for having misunderstood the procedure. This is a great pity, because I would have much rather resolved the matter and in fact I deliberately put down the Amendments in such a way that we could take the Amendment without muddling it with Amendment 11B. However, the object of Amendment No. 11C cannot be considered without my speaking to Amendment No. 11B. If your Lordships will bear with me, I will do that. I understand that it is permissible to quote front Ministers in another place, though my noble friend was taken to task when quoting from other Members of another place. Mr. Booth, the Minister of State, at column 627 of the Commons Hansard said:
"My right honourable friend at Second Reading in Column 264 of the Official Report indicated very clearly that small ports where satisfactory arrangements had not been devised or a permanent labour force would not be brought within the Scheme."
At a later stage, in column 663, Mr. Booth said:
"Honourable Members will realise that my right honourable friend and I have always made clear our belief that third party ports outside the Scheme should, unless some special circumstances apply, be brought within the Scheme. We have taken the view it cannot help the industrial relations of the industry if, because of historical accident a small but significant proportion of third party loading or unloading are subject to a different control of employment. There is no doubt that this difference has given rise to considerable difficulties and continues to give rise to difficulties".
I interpret both those quotations to mean that the Government of the day do not mean to include small ports within the

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Scheme under their scheme whatever the circumstances or definition of small ports may be. If that is so, it would be wise to exclude small ports by the definition given in Amendment No. 11B from the Bill. If you do not want to get somebody in, why frighten them all by having legislation which enables you to put them in? It comes back to what I was saying on Amendment No. 11A: why frighten people? You may say, "Are they frightened?" The answer is, "Yes". As my noble friend Lord Gowrie said on an earlier Amendment, I am particularly concerned with the Isle of Wight.
I have taken quite a lot of trouble to find out what people think at all levels of employment. There is absolutely no doubt about it that they are worried. They are not worried for the immediate future but for the long-term future. They are not really worried that their job will get taken over by a docker, though that is in the backs of their minds, but what they are worried about is that somehow a relatively well-ordered relationship will be upset by importing an alien form of employee into their midst in small numbers—because there are only penny numbers in the Isle of Wight of people who could be remotely described as dockers, within the Bill without amendment. But there are some that could be, and what they are worried about is that they do not want people whose interests are quite different from theirs. Therefore they would much rather that there was some protection given, so that they should not be included within the confines of this Bill.
You may say, "Well, we have got Ministerial assurances that they will not be. Is that not good enough?" Unfortunately I happen to know that this may be so in Ministerial circles, but it is not entirely so in trade union circles. It has been said to me, "Oh yes, we shall have to look at all the small ports because small ports may get to be big ports". Probably very genuinely, the established dockers have got rather frightened by the fact that non-Scheme ports have blossomed forth since one or other of the last settlements with them over the past 20 years. Perhaps they have not stopped to think why they have blossomed, and blossomed not only in the interests of the employers who operate from them and of course of the country, which has had
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perhaps a rather better turn round of transshipment, but also of the employees in those areas.
However, putting that on one side, I can see that they would probably be worried about some of these small ports, not necessarily in the Isle of Wight, which is rather different, because I cannot believe that we shall become a main exporting centre for the United Kingdom; the depth of water makes that rather difficult to comprehend anyhow. Forgetting that for the moment, the Amendment we are talking about will cover other areas of the country which might expand in various ways. The great thing about the Amendment is that if it does expand, if a port which has at the moment employees who are working less than 1,350 hours in the year on loading and unloading cargo, or is able to accept only 1,000 ton ships, dredges itself so that it can handle bigger ships, or builds itself wharves so that its employees can be more fully employed, the protection of this particular clause does not apply to it. I should have thought that the dockers are not threatened by this and that this is a reasonable Amendment to cover them.
I want now, with the permission of the Committee, to move on to Amendment No. 11C which I did not want to do until I had heard the Government spokesman, but I am directed by my Lord Chairman on this point. The object of Amendment 11C not being a basic part of this Amendment is that it would seem to me that against the background of trying to seek criteria for what is a reasonable port to match the implications of Mr. Booth's statement, particularly that in column 627 which I quoted, the figure of 1,750 tons would be reasonable. Perhaps the Minister would like to listen to what I have to say, because I am rather directing these remarks to him as I am going to require an answer. It would seem to me that 1,000 tons and 1,750 tons are not so very different as between one and the other in order to meet the objects expressed by Mr. Booth in column 627 which I referred to.
It might perhaps be reasonable to ask the Government at this stage whether there would be a major difference in the number of ports which would be affected by this change or whether there would either be no change at all or a quite minimal one. I have given the noble Lord, Lord Oram,

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notice of my question and if he can give me an answer now, so much the better. Depending on the answer which is provided by the Government, I would seek leave
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from your Lordships to re-introduce this Amendment No. 11C during a later stage of the Bill. However, I am hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Oram, will be able to give me a satisfactory answer to my question.
9.46 p.m.
The Earl of CROMARTIE: I am afraid there seems to be a slight mix-up. I am very briefly going to mention Amendment No. 11B, but before doing that I have to make an apology to your Lordships. During the Second Reading of this Bill I mentioned, quite correctly, that I was a local director of a local cold store and that I got no remuneration. In fact, when I got back to Scotland—a long way from the Isle of Wight—I found that I get £200 a year, but the Inland Revenue will take most of it.
Having now cleared my conscience, I should like to say that I am particularly concerned with all the small ports round the Scottish coast, and particularly the port of Stornoway in the Isle of Lewis. I shall not go through my Second Reading speech again, but I should like to bring out just one or two salient points. First, in the Hebrides every single thing that is brought in in bulk has to come by sea, which makes it more expensive than on the mainland of Scotland. That, of course, is a consideration. To include ports such as Stornoway would be completely ridiculous. There is already a perfectly good arrangement where the fishermen—and the fishing is largely seasonal—are loading or unloading cargo when they are not fishing. That applies especially to the salmon netting fishermen. So if these ports were included not only would you have higher prices to be paid by the population but you would also be having to pay more in unemployment benefit to people who will be out of a job anyway. I hope very much that the noble Lord will exclude practically every port North of the Clyde ports and the Firth of Forth, with the exception of Aberdeen, right round the coast of Scotland.
Baroness HORNSBY-SMITH: I should like to support my noble friend in pleading for the small ports. The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, earlier today referred to the consultation that had taken place; but surely that consultation was with representatives of the major ports with constant cargoes—the Newcastles, the Londons and the Liverpools—and I doubt very much whether there is anybody from Devon, Cornwall or Sussex, who will be affected by the five-mile corridor, who has been consulted in any way
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at all as to the effect on the small ports of these new proposals for this corridor. In the debate in another place, the Government spokesman appeared to have no figures relating to the number of dockers already employed in non-Scheme ports and the number of employers in container groupings outside the dock area which would come into the proposed five-mile limit, nor to the workers who could be affected by the five-mile limit where dockers might contend that the total delivery within that limit should be undertaken by members of their union.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, the noble Lord sitting on the Government Front Bench said this afternoon that the increased cost would be negligible. The Ports Association, which is a very responsible body, has published various analyses of the cost effectiveness of the labour employed in many of the smaller ports in the West Country and in Wales. Those ports have tremendous local interests and by determined efforts have been made operative and viable. The small ports have provided local employment because they are organised in a flexible fashion so that the maximum use can be made of them when the tides are appropriate. Their labour is linked not only to the seasonal produce which from time to time requires possibly 40 members in a work force but also to the occasions when the tides are so low that the cargoes cannot be shipped in that area, or alternatively to the time when there are no seasonal products or no particular goods to be shipped from those ports. That flexibility would go. If those docks were taken over under the Dock Labour Scheme the maximum required number of dockers, even if they were fully employed for only three months of seasonal exports, would be entitled under the agreement to be paid for twelve, not three, months of the year. How any responsible Minister can say that this is not going to put up the costs at these small ports and put some of them out of business is beyond my comprehension.
At this late hour I do not want to go into the figures, but a most detailed analysis has been made by the Small Ports Committee of the Ports Association, based on their balance sheets, the men that they employ, the wages that they pay, the cargoes that they handle and the seasons

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during which they handle those cargoes. If Her Majesty's Ministers would look at this analysis they would see that to impose this scheme on those small ports would bring disaster to them. It would make them completely non-viable and put some of them out of business. These small ports serve well the smaller industries in the West Country. The West Country has several very fine industries but nobody would suggest that it is a densely industrialised area. However, it contains industries like the china clay industry which makes regular shipments, and the industry knows when and how those shipments will be made. However, the china clay industry alone could not sustain a full complement of dockers for every day that might or would apply, who would have to be paid for under the new Scheme.
I support entirely the noble Lords who have spoken. I do not believe that enough consideration has been given to these areas. I speak in particular of the West Country but I know that what I say applies equally to Scotland and Wales. It may be that some people in high office in London think that what is good for London is good for Cornwall, but you try to tell a Cornishman that!
Viscount SIMON: I should have liked to contribute to this debate but I am rather lost. I thought that we were discussing Amendment No. 11C but the last two contributions appear to have been directed to Amendment No. 11B. Has Amendment No. 11C been withdrawn?
The PRINCIPAL DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: To clarify the matter, Amendment No. 11C has been moved. It is an Amendment to No. 11B, therefore it is quite in order to discuss both together. When No. 11C has been disposed of, No. 11D will be called. That, too, is an Amendment. Finally, Amendment No. 11B will be called, as amended or not.
Lord ORAM: Perhaps I might reply to the debate so far and the noble Viscount may, if he wishes, join in afterwards.
As I think the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, indicated, these Amendments seek to exclude small ports from the provisions of
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the Bill by three criteria, one being the number of hours worked; the second, the size of ships; and the third, the question of a permanent labour force and the standards of employment. The Bill's approach to the question of small ports is that the National Dock Labour Board will examine the situation at each port, as provided in Clause 7, to which we shall come at a later stage, and then report its findings to the Secretary of State. As the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, pointed out, several of my right honourable and honourable friends in another place have indicated—he gave actual quotations, I think—the view that a great number of small ports dealt with in the way that the Bill proposes will, through that process, be excluded from the Scheme. I should like, if I may, to give just one further quotation in support of that. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State said on Monday, 26th July:
"I recognise that there arc a number of small ports which, by their geographical location, irregular nature of cargoes and a number of other factors, will not be suited to the Scheme ". —[Official Report, Commons, 26/7/76, col. 163.]
So, as the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, indicated, that is the approach to the Bill of the Government, as indicated in the quotations from the Minister.
We believe that the method suggested by the Amendments is not a suitable one. To attempt to exclude work at particular ports or harbours from the possibility of being brought within the Scheme by reference to, for example, the maximum size of ship which can be accommodated or the amount of dock work done there or any other criteria of this kind, such, for instance, as the depth of the navigable channel or the periods within which ships can enter, would not be satisfactory. These are various suggestions either contained in the present Amendments or that have been brought forward in other connections. Our basic reasons for opposing criteria of this kind are that they would be likely to lead to arbitrary and indefensible distinctions between port areas which are generally of a similar character. Introducing these criteria would be invidious, in that different decisions could he made concerning ports which in other respects are generally of a similar character. Moreover, it could sometimes be difficult to determine whether or not the circumstances provided for existed.

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The first criterion proposed in (2D) of Amendment No. 11B has presumably been framed to exclude ports where loading and unloading work is effectively not a full-time job, although numbers of persons may be engaged on it at certain times. Clauses 7 and 8 already provide for the Board to take this sort of consideration into account in considering whether to recommend particular work for classification by the words:
"whether the work … requires for its efficient performance the engagement of a permanent labour force … "
It is an inappropriate ground for determining the extent of the area within which work can be considered for classification. In particular, labour requirements could well change over time with the development or decline of a port. Similar considerations apply in respect of the size of a ship; the position could change over time, and the maximum size of ship which can be accommodated is not necessarily a good guide to the amount of work performed at a place.
Perhaps at this stage I might reply to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, because he kindly gave me as much notice as it was possible for him to give—it was not great notice, but I am not blaming him for that. He indicated in his speech that his is something of a probing Amendment, in order to see whether information can be given as to the number of ports which might be additionally excluded if 1,750 were put in rather than 1,000. I am afraid that in the time that has elapsed since he spoke to me it has been impossible to get that sort of information. I am not encouraging him to think that given more time it would be possible. I think that he was rather asking the impossible, because this sort of question arises: What would be excluded, that part of the harbour only which was not capable of taking a 1,750 ton ship or a 1,000 ton ship? In that case, Admiralty charts all round the coast would need to be consulted. It would be a very different exercise, as I am sure the noble Lord will agree.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Just straight off-the-cuff, would not the earlier Amendment that we discussed just now cover this by referring to the definitions of harbours and harbour land? I think that is (2A). I think it would cover that, because obviously, if it is a port part of which
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will handle only a smaller ship, part of whose wharves are worked on only for a shorter time, clearly it will not be excluded because it will be under the wider definition of (2A). I do not know whether my noble friend Lord Lyell would agree with that; but if that is so, I do not think we are bothered about that; we are bothered about a port whose maximum depth is capable of taking a ship of 1,750 tons or 1,000 tons and all of whose workers work less than 1,350 hours when loading or unloading cargo.
Lord ORAM: Yes, but I was directing my remarks particularly to the distinction which the noble Lord tries to draw between one size of ship and the other, and trying to indicate that the kind of information that would be necessary in order to answer that question is by no means easily accessible. It would involve a very difficult exercise of research which I do not think the noble Lord is really insisting that we should engage upon.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Before the noble Lord goes on, I think that the Hydro-graphic Department of the Ministry of Defence would whip it up jolly quickly. If the noble Lord is thinking only of civil departments, of course they would probably take three years, but he should try the Ministry of Defence.
Lord ORAM: Well, we shall see what we can do, but I would not offer any great hopes to the noble Lord.
The Government's general position on small ports, which I have indicated has been stated repeatedly during the Bill's progress through another place and in reply to a considerable amount of correspondence, is that the absolute exclusion of particular places, either by name or by reference to some standard criteria of the kind proposed in these Amendments, is not the most sensible way to proceed because such a wide variety of factors could be relevant. The Bill explicitly requires consideration to be given to whether the work in question requires for its efficient performance the engagement of a permanent labour force, which is one of the points made in the Amendment. If it clearly does not require such a labour force, the work will not be classified, and this was one of the factors in the mind of

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my right honourable friend the Secretary of State when he was speaking in the terms which I quoted.
So really what divides the Committee—and I hope it will not be too deep a division—is the method by which small ports can be excluded from the operation of the Scheme: whether it is done by the process indicated in Clause 7, by an examination of each particular situation by the National Dock Labour Board with the benefit of all the local information that it requires, or whether we attempt—and I think it would be a wrong-headed and vain attempt—to lay down the various criteria in the way that the Amendments are seeking to do. I think that is the wrong approach and the original method in the Bill is the right approach.
Viscount SIMON: I have listened with great care to what the noble Lord has said. Personally, I feel that it would be much better to approach the matter on the lines suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell. I do not necessarily think that any particular criterion is the right one, although that is a matter we can discuss. But the noble Lord, Lord Oram, suggested—if I heard him aright—that the trouble was that if any criterion was laid down it would lead, or might lead, to arbitrary and indefensible decisions. I should have thought it was much more likely that arbitrary and indefensible decisions would be reached if all the small ports were referred to the Dock Labour Board independently. Unless one lays down some criterion, how on earth is the Dock Labour Board to decide what to recommend? It will he faced with an enormous number—and it is an enormous number—of ports to consider. Perhaps the noble Lord has in mind that the Dock Labour Board itself will lay down some criteria, because we all know that if one tries to judge an issue without having laid down any criteria the decisions will certainly become arbitrary and might become indefensible.
Another point I wish to mention is that although, as the noble Lord said, the Dock Labour Board, having considered the matter in relation to any Scheme, will report to the Secretary of State and make a recommendation for classification or not, as I understand it the Secretary of State
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need not accept the recommendation. He can either accept it or reject it, so we are not very much further when a recommendation has been made.
I have not got an up-to-date record of the number of the small ports, but when I used to be concerned with ports I remember that there were 102 members of the then Dock and Harbour Authorities Association, of which I suppose about a dozen were fair sized ports. That excluded many of what are called "marine works" in Scotland which were not in that Association. I do not think that many of those ports—tiny places, little quays here and there—have ceased to exist, so I would imagine that there are well over 100 cases that the Board will have to consider. Surely, even in the interests of saving time and labour it would be sensible to try to find some criterion below which one could say, "Do not let us bother about these at all". I do not necessarily say that the criteria proposed here are right and I must say that I am particularly uncertain about the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, in Amendment 11C. This seems to me to be a little on the high side for his tonnage and as at present advised I would prefer Amendment 11B.
In any case, there might be room for discussion between the two sides of the Committee as to whether there is a better criterion. I find it difficult to accept, as suggested, that it is better to have no criterion at all and for each one of these cases to be looked at individually. I suggest that anyone who has had the task of, shall I say, choosing from a large number of candidates, giving marks for different qualities, knows how very difficult it is to choose from a large number of people, or a large number of ports, unless you have laid down criteria to help you decide whether they are within or without the limits.
Lord JACQUES: The criterion is laid down in Clause 7.
Viscount SIMON: I confess I cannot carry this Bill in my head. What is laid down in Clause 7, if I have it right, is that the Board will consider a whole lot of matters. It is only right that it should be given some guidance as to what is or is not to be considered a small port for this purpose. That will still leave it discretion to recommend that ports that are above the criterion should not be included.

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Casting my mind back to the Bill brought in by the Labour Government some time ago for nationalising the ports, there was there a criterion for small ports which were not to be brought in. I have not refreshed my mind as to what it was, but it may be that that would be a criterion acceptable to the Party opposite, because it was included in the Bill which, in the end, failed because of the General Election. I am sure that in that Bill there was some provision for small ports to be recognised by an easily calculated criterion, and possibly that could be looked at. I feel strongly that we are going to put an intolerable burden on the Dock Labour Board if we do not lay down some criterion of small ports. Also, we are more likely to get arbitrary or indefensible differences between ports if we leave each case to be decided ad hoc, so to speak.
Lord ORAM: If I may briefly acknowledge the earnestness with which the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, approaches this problem and his hope that it would be possible to legislate, it seems to me that the issue between us is that there are really such a wide variety of considerations that would have to be taken into account that any satisfactory writing of it into the Bill would be an enormously complicated business. As my noble friend Lord Jacques pointed out, within Clause 7 there are certain guidelines to the National Dock Labour Board. That gives them some guidance, but in my view the detailed considerations of all the local circumstances are much better dealt with by the process laid down in the Bill, rather than by attempting the very difficult task of establishing such criteria covering all the various factors.
Lord MOTTISTONE: I believe your Lordships would like me to dispose of
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Amendment No. 11C. With regard to that Amendment, and hoping that, with the best resources available to them, the Government will try to provide some sort of an answer embodying this Amendment, I ask the leave of your Lordships to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment to the Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord LYELL: I beg to move, as an Amendment to the Amendment, manuscript Amendment No. 11D:
In subsection 2D(b), line 2, at end insert ("or (c) where the labour force is employed substantially on a permanent basis and where the conditions of remuneration and other service arc equivalent to those pertaining at other ports which are members of the National Ports Council;")
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): The Question is whether Amendment No. 11D shall be agreed to.
Lord JACQUES: Have we disposed of Amendment No. 11B?
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES: We dispose of 11D first and then move on to deal with 11B.
Lord LYELL: I should like to couple Amendment No. 11D to No. 11B. I understand that the procedure would be to move 11D at this stage.
10.16 p.m.
On Question, Whether Manuscript Amendment No. 11D shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 59; Not-Contents, 27.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Gisborough, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Ampthill, L.

Glasgow, E.

Onslow, E.

Armstrong, L.

Gowrie, E.

Rochdale, V.

Auckland, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Balerno, L.

Hives, L.

St. Davids, V.

Barrington, V.

Hornsby-Smith, B.

Salisbury, M.

Beaumont of Whitley, L.

Inglewood, L.

Sandford, L.

Berkeley, B.

Kemsley, V.

Sandys, L.

Boyd of Merton, V.

Killearn, L.

Seear, B.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Simon, V.

Carrington, L.

Limerick, E.

Strathclyde, L.

Cromartie, E.

Long, V.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Sudeley, L.

de Clifford, L.

Lyell, L.

Swansea, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Merrivale, L.

Tranmire, L.

Deramore, L.

Monson, L.

Vickers, B.

Drumalbyn, L.

Morris, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Elles, B.

Mottistone, L.

Wigoder, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Winstanley, L.

Ferrers, E.

Northchurch, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Blyton, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Jacques, L.

Oram, L.

Brimelow, L.

Janner, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal.)

Champion, L.

Kagan, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Collison, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Ritchie-Calder, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Stedman, B.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

McCluskey, L.

Wells-Pestell, L. [Teller.]

Hirshfield, L.

Melchett, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment to the Amendment agreed to accordingly.
10.24 p.m.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): The Question now is that Amendment No. 11B, as amended, be agreed to?
On Question, Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): I understand that the noble Earl, Lord Gowrie, wishes to move a manuscript Amendment by agreement between the Members of the Committee.
10.25 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE: That normally superlatively well-oiled machine, the Opposition Front Bench, developed a fly in the works some moments ago and my noble friend Lord Lyell inadvertently did not move Amendment 11A on the Order Paper. I had spoken to that Amendment, and so declared that I had spoken to it, with Amendment No. 10. We appear in sackcloth and ashes and the Government
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have been very reasonable about it, particularly in the light of some of the rude things we have said about the Bill, and I understand that they are disposed to accept it as a manuscript Amendment. We have of course voted on it. I therefore beg to move Amendment No. 11A as a manuscript Amendment:
Page 4, line 12, at end insert—
("(2A) A dock labour scheme area may comprise any place in Great Britain which is within half a mile (in a direct line) of a harbour to which this Act applies or of the nearest harbour land adjacent to such a harbour.
(2B) For the purposes of this section, "harbour" and "harbour land" have the meanings assigned to them by section 57 of the Harbours Act 1964.")
Lord ORAM: We should be loath to take advantage of the error on the part of noble Lords opposite and certainly I personally should be loath to take advantage of it because I am very green to the procedures of your Lordships' House and am quite capable of making a mistake at any time. I am therefore glad to accede to the noble Earl's suggestion.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I am afraid that the noble Lord, to whom we are grateful, is really saying that the grass is always greener on the other side.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 4, line 13, leave out subsections (3) to (7).
The noble Lord said: This is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 4, as amended, agreed to.
10.28 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 21:
After Clause 4, insert the following new clause:
.—(1) Where under subsection (2) of section 4 above the Secretary of State shall make orders designating areas as dock labour scheme areas, the Board shall be required to establish local dock labour boards responsible for areas as may be determined by the Board.
(2) Each such local board shall be constituted with a chairman and such numbers of members as the Secretary of State shall designate. Excluding the Chairman, an equal number of such members shall represent respectively employers and workers engaged in commercial and industrial activities taking place in the local dock labour hoard areas as determined.
(3) The Chairman of each such local board shall be appointed by such local board.
(4) The Board shall appoint members of each local dock labour board other than the chairman after consultation with the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress.
The noble Lord said: I hope the Committee will accept the gratitude of this, we hope, better oiled machine now, as we pass to another aspect of the Bill. This Amendment is concerned with the local boards which we understand will be set up under the Scheme. The local dock labour boards which are to be established for the various areas which are yet to be determined by the National Dock Labour Board, will be responsible for the actual process of classifying cargo-handling as dock work, or possibly not. These local boards will be taking decisions at working level and, we hope, almost at each individual site. Above all, these local boards will be responsible for the discipline of work, and therefore the composition of the local boards is of the greatest importance to the employers of dock labour at the various sites.
We believe that the dock work is too important not to have the widest possible interest to employers and employees, and indeed to outside interests. There may be some need for an independent element
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to break any possible deadlock between port employers and unions, which unfortunately in the past has led to the toleration of a certain amount of indiscipline and the incidence of a few restrictive practices in the docks. This problem could, we hope, be met by the appointment of an alternate chairman from the employers' and the dock workers' side, with possibly a casting vote, and as any total independence would not lead to a working and effective board, we believe that with such a chairman agreement would be made easier.
But in present circumstances, as we are discussing the Bill at the moment, the proposed Amendment seeks to offer the best opportunity for introducing board members who are not bound by the old Dock Labour Board rules and customs, because we believe that the key to any possible success with the local dock labour boards would rest with the eventual selection of any or all of the trade union representatives, particularly if officials from the union concerned with cold stores, inland depots and warehouses were to take at least one of the tour places for dock workers on the boards. Similarly, operators of the dock labour in cold stores and in these inland depots should be entitled eventually to one of the four places for dock employers. The present numbers are that two-thirds of all registered dock workers are employed by port authorities. For instance, in Liverpool there are only two other employers of registered labour in the port, and yet there are seven cold stores in Liverpool. We understand that one of them lies in the heart of dockland, and we are very pleased to note that relations in this particular cold store are, and have been for many years, really excellent.
But we come back to the perennial lack of discipline and the very great difficulty in finding some effective dispute settlement procedures. This difficulty is endemic in the port transport industry, where various employers have tended, under necessity and pressure, to concede demands rather than to take action which might be laudable but which nevertheless would have the effect of delaying ships. Other interests are now going to be involved, and ship movements need not necessarily always be an overriding consideration. Of course, there

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are strong arguments for shipping bodies and other consumer interests to have representation on the new National Dock Labour Board, but we wonder whether they are always needed on the local board, because they should not necessarily become involved in what are essentially industrial problems at a local level. Unlike the existing dock labour boards, the new one will be directly concerned with questions of pay and hours, welfare and, indeed, training, as well as pension schemes and benefits and the collection of the levy paid by dock employers.
We understand that the members of the existing National Board have made re-presentations to the Government against the Dock Work Regulation Bill, which they describe as unworkable in its present state. We understand that these re-presentations have complained that, eventually, power will rest with the local boards. It has also been reported that the Department of Employment has in mind retaining the existing local boards for various areas around the country—major ports such as London, Liverpool, Bristol, Hull and the South Coast, with possibly minor additions to the new members.
The whole question of obtaining workable arrangements for (may I put it) disentangling one set of port interests from another through the local dock labour boards is the main and, indeed, the only purpose of this Amendment. The board, we believe, must have the power to choose its own chairman, and I would commend subsection (3) of this Amendment, since those of your Lordships who have any experience of such boards at working level will know that the chairman's casting vote is indeed an ultimate weapon, and is one which is used with very great restraint. Thus we hope that our Amendment will do much to help relations within the proposed local board, and we hope that it will be a tool to aid negotiations within the local board and hence to continue to improve relations at the local level, which are much more industrial than the wider consumer interest. I beg to move.
10.35 p.m.
Lord ORAM: The Bill at present provides that matters relating to the establishment of local boards shall be solely a
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matter for the new Dock Labour Scheme. The new clause which the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, has moved seeks to specify in the main legislation, in the Bill now before us, the composition of the local boards, the manner of their establishment and the appointment of their members. I agree that the composition of local boards will be of very great importance but I would suggest that the appropriate membership of the boards can only be decided effectively in the light of the functions they will have to perform, and since the latter can only be determined by the Scheme it would seem logical that their composition should likewise be a matter for the Scheme.
Furthermore, changes in the Scheme, and consequently changes in the appropriate composition of the local boards, could well become necessary to adapt to changing circumstances in the industry. It will be important that there should be the necessary flexibility in the arrangements to ensure that such modifications can be made expeditiously. It is therefore considered right that these matters should be dealt within the Scheme, and I think that that is the essential difference between the provisions in the present Bill in paragraph 6 of Schedule 2 and the proposals that the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, has put forward.
This does not mean that we in any way disagree about the importance of the local boards and their constitution, but we regard it as important that their composition should be the right one in accordance with the functions that will later be determined. Therefore I would ask the Committee not to accept this new clause.
Lord WIGODER: The local dock labour boards are clearly an essential part of the whole Scheme. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, for raising this matter and making the proposals that he has about the composition of the local boards. I am bound to say that my noble friends on these Benches think, on the arguments as heard so far, that it might be better to leave the composition of the local boards to a subsequent stage and not to seem to write them in specifically at this stage.
I wish to draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, to two matters in the clause as at present drafted. First,

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subsection (2), the proposal that, apart from the chairman, an equal number of members of each local board shall represent employers and workers, is, I should have thought, a recipe for disaster when the local boards seek to deal with a disciplinary problem. Experience has shown that almost inevitably, whatever the merits of a particular dispute, the employers' representative will line up with the employers and the workers' representative with the workers. No one is satisfied that the decisions reached are in any way related to the merits of the case.
There is a further small point about the new clause as drafted. If, under subsection (2), the local board is constituted with a chairman and various members, it does not appear possible, under subsection (3), that the chairman of the local board can be appointed by the local board. There cannot be a local board in existence until it has the chairman by virtue of subsection (2). This is a drafting point which could be put right later; but I would venture to suggest that it might be better for a provision of this nature, although discussed now, not to be written into the Bill.
Lord LYELL: I am grateful first of all to the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, for the qualified support, for the support at least for the idea behind the Amendment. So far as the case on representation in subsection (2) is concerned, we accept that he could have a point, where one has a confrontation in cases of discipline, where employers line up on one side and employees' representatives line up on the other. As I pointed out in my explanation in moving this particular new clause, we believe that a workable local scheme will not become apparent in the atmosphere of confrontation, and further negotiation is always needed at local level. We accept much of what the noble Lord, Lord Oram, has said; nevertheless, we feel that there is too wide an area of discretion in Clause 7 (I think that was the clause to which the noble Lord was referring) and we are not entirely happy about the criterion—if we can call it that—for the appointment of local boards. This provision is one on which we do not feel particularly strongly at this point. We have put it forward to hear what the noble Lord has had to say. At this stage, after the debates we have had tonight, I seek
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leave to withdraw the Amendment, with the possibility that we may reconsider it at a later stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.42 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 22:
After Clause 4, insert the following new clause:
Recruitment
.—(1) Subject to final determination by the local dock labour boards, transfer of men from the extension register to the main register shall be restricted to those—

(a) who have served for a minimum period of two years on the extension register;

(b) who have passed a medical examination to prove their fitness to perform "all" work likely to be required of a registered dock worker;

(c) who have attained the necessary levels of skill; and

(d) who have not, while previously employed in the port transport industry, accepted severance pay under any redundancy scheme.

(2) Where a person is employed on premises classified under the Act and is unable to meet the requirements of subsection (1) above, that person shall be allowed to continue in that employment on the extension register.
The noble Earl said: With the leave of the Committee, I should like to move this Amendment and take Amendments Nos. 27 and 28 in my name. These are probing Amendments to inquire about the position of new dock workers—that is to say, dock workers who may become dockers under the scheme. What we want to know is whether under the Bill new dock workers can move straight from the extension register on to the main Register, or how quickly they can move from the one to the other register, and how the Government envisage such a movement. In these probing Amendments we restrict movement off the extension register on to the main register to two years or more. Also we make this transfer dependent upon local circumstances—that seems only sensible—and we ask that final determination be made by local boards.
Amendment No. 27 is linked to No. 22 because it deals with redundancy and severance payments and, indeed, with the whole question of whether it is fair that someone can take up employment and get compensated very quickly without working. We feel that the Government have

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not explained or commented on how many new jobs it is estimated will be created by the introduction of the new legislation. If the answer be nil, that no new jobs will be created—as has been suggested—we question the logic of a Bill which seeks to increase the number of registered dockers, in view of the sustained efforts that have been made during the past to reduce the number of men on the register.
The need for fewer men on the register has come about partly because of changes of building within the industry (which we have dealt with in earlier stages of the Committee stage), including the improved efficiency of handling methods with the introduction of containers and the like. We think that as a result of the Bill the demand for severance payments will escalate as increasing numbers of registered men are unable to find work. This is something we gave a warning about earlier. We should like the Government's response to it.
Lord JACQUES: First of all, may I point out that in spite of the side heading to this new clause, "Recruitment", we are not dealing with that; what we are dealing with is people whose work has been classified and people who have been put on the extension register. I do not think that covers new recruits. I should also like to say that when I read the terms of this Amendment I was a little surprised because the Opposition in the other place have consistently been seeking in everything they said and did to protect the worker whose work was classified, whereas this Amendment seems to make it more difficult for the worker whose work has been classified and who has been put on the extension register.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I am grateful to the noble Lord, but as I said I put down the Amendment in order to try to find out the noble Lord's position and I am still trying to find that out.
Lord JACQUES: The effect of the new clause would be that no extension register workers would be added to a main register unless they had been at least two years on an extension register. It also gives the local board discretion as to when, over an indefinite period, they would be transferred to the main register
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and in addition make such a transfer subject to the conditions of subsection (1), paragraphs (b), (c) and (d) in the Amendment. It would not be sensible to require all extension register workers to wait as long as two years before being given the full protection of the Scheme. There are a number of categories for whom a very short period on the extension register is likely to be reasonable—for example, those engaged in loading and unloading at ports not at present covered by the Scheme but which may be covered at a later date.
Secondly, there are some who are already employed at 1967 Scheme ports, such as Liverpool tally clerks, whose terms and conditions of employment and negotiating arrangements are already very closely linked with those of registered dock workers and it would be quite unreasonable for them to remain on the extension register for a period of two years. The extension register period is designed to enable adjustments considered necessary in industrial relations and negotiating arrangements to be made. This should not take more than two years.
For the period to be of an indefinite length over two years, and particularly to be subject to the decision of the local Board which could be open to varying and conflicting pressures, would create a most unsatisfactory situation of uncertainty both for workers and for management. It is in any case the clear intention that workers on such work, which has to be classified, should be looked upon as categories rather than individuals in respect of their inclusion or otherwise on an extension register and the period which they should spend on that register. It would be quite inconsistent with this intention that individuals should be subject to further specific tests before going on to the main register.
The period on the extension register is not conceived as being in any sense a trial period for the individual workers concerned. That would place them in an intolerable position. For example, a worker who suffered an industrial injury would have automatically to be treated differently from his fellow workers. He may be fully able to do the work which he is doing but not able to do the full range of work done by registered dockers.

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While the provision of subsection (2) in the new clause proposed is clearly envisaged as a safeguard of their personal position in some measure, this does not go far enough.
The Bill already enables the Board to recommend that particular workers should be allowed to continue doing work but not eligible for registration on the extension register if they consider there are special reasons justifying this—and that is under Clause 10, subsection (3). Paragraphs (b) and (c) of subsection (1) in the Amendment taken together seem to envisage that these workers should be required both to be fit to undertake all categories of registered work and also to have the necessary skills to do all such work.
This latter is quite unrealistic. There are few, if any, registered dock workers at the present time who have all the skills to do all the work which is done by registered dockers. In practice, many will have only the skill to do properly the work that they are doing. If, on the other hand, they are required to have only the skill to do, say, a clerk's job, it would be quite inappropriate to require them to have the level of physical fitness needed for a stevedore's work. We interpret the Amendment as meaning just this. I am prepared to rest there, but if the Amendment were being pressed I would wish to examine the drafting. I shall have observations to make on Amendments Nos. 27 and 28 when we come to them.
The Earl of GOWRIE: Far be it from met to disturb the noble Lord's rest, but we have in fact come to them. I talked about Nos. 27 and 28. I do not mind repeating what I said if it will be more convenient for the noble Lord.
Lord JACQUES: I have taken Nos. 27 and 28 literally, for just what they say. I would say they are unnecessary and undesirable. They are unnecessary because workers on an extension register will retain all the normal statutory protections, including their rights under the Redundancy Payments Act 1965, because the exclusion of registered dock workers from the provisions of this and other employment protection legislation contained in Clause 14 applies only to
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workers registered in a main register and not to those on the extension register.
Clause 14 does what the Amendment intends, and therefore the Amendment is unnecessary. But I would point out that Amendment No. 27 is undesirable. The words are there to ensure that nothing in the Scheme can interfere in any way with these statutory employment protections set out in Clause 14. Without these words, which the Amendment seeks to delete, it might be possible for the Scheme to contain provisions which would in some way detract from these protections. So, in that way, it is not only unnecessary but undesirable.
10.53 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I said at the beginning that I had put down these Amendments to try to get some information from the Government. I think that is a legitimate ploy at Committee stage. What I was trying to find out, and what the Government have not explained, is how many new jobs it is estimated would be created by the introduction of the legislation we are discussing. We should like to have some indication from the Government as to what increase in the number of registered dock workers is envisaged.
We want clarification of the position of these men, now working as non-registered labour, within the proposed five-mile zone in warehouses, cold stores and the like, having already accepted severance pay of up to £5,250. If such premises are to be brought within the proposed scheme, would the former registered dockers be eligible for re-registration, having had their severance pay? If so, would they eventually qualify for additional severance payments? As I said at the beginning of the Committee stage, we do not object to the principle of severance payments, but the idea of severance payment being piled on severance payment is an enviable but irrational position.
Lord JACQUES: No estimate can be made of the number of jobs that would be created, because it is for the National Board to make recommendations about where the Scheme should be extended. However, technological changes have taken work outside the immediate port

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areas. Therefore we might expect the Board to recommend extending the Scheme in expanding areas of cargo handling activities—for example, container groupage. The Bill contains proper protection for existing employees but also it expands job opportunities.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I will not press the matter further now, although I may return to it. It sounds to me suspiciously as though what we are really extending are protections and that while we extend those we may also be extending the severance payments which are protections for former adverse conditions in the docks. I am reluctant that this should become an aggregate system of transfer payments. However, I will look at what the noble Lord has said. I confess that he has blinded me with science; I did not altogether understand him. However, if what the noble Lord has said is satisfactory I will abandon the Amendment.
Lord JACQUES: Before we go any further, may I say that we are hoping to save severance payments. First of all, if work is classified, the existing workers are protected, so that is not in question. If, however, there is expansion of the work which has been classified, we hope to transfer registered dock workers rather than have to pay them severance pay. Therefore, new employment would not go to any Tom, Dick or Harry who was not employed in this kind of work; it would go to registered dock workers to help to save their severance pay.
Lord WIGODER: May I ask the noble Lord whether he is saying that as a result of the Scheme there will be more jobs available than would otherwise be available and, if so, will he say how the Scheme is going to provide for that?
Lord JACQUES: I think that the misunderstanding here lies entirely in words. I am saying that more jobs will be available to registered dockers.
Lord WIGODER: In other words, nobody is disagreeing that the Scheme will not increase the total number of jobs available. If that is so, does not the other part of the Bill to which the noble Lord has referred—namely, that protection is
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given to all existing holders of jobs for all practical purposes—mean that no extra jobs will be available for registered dockers?
Lord JACQUES: All I am saying is that when work is classified the existing workers are fully protected; but if there is expansion then, rather than get labour from outside, we hope to transfer registered dockers instead of paying them severance pay. That is all I am saying—nothing more and nothing less.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I am sorry to press the noble Lord on this point but it is important. It has been said time and time again that the manning conditions of dock workers are better than they are elsewhere. When the noble Lord said that the Bill preserves existing employment but also extends job opportunities I took him to mean that it would extend the existing employment and give the opportunity of jobs as well. This is what we understood would happen because of the higher manning standards among dock workers. The noble Lord then qualified what he had said by laying emphasis on the fact that if there was an expansion the jobs would go to dock workers. That we quite understand. I wonder, however, whether the noble Lord would clarify the first part of his answer.
Lord JACQUES: I think we disagree about what is the same work. I take the stand that people who have the training to stow goods into a ship are also very competent to stow goods into a container. They have the training and the right kind of experience. The ideal position would have been if what we are proposing in the Bill had been done years ago so that, as cargo depots developed, instead of paying severance pay to dockers we put them into the cargo depots to do the work. They are the ones who have had the experience and training in this. We have not done that; we have allowed other people to be trained to do dockers' work and that is why we have had trouble with the dockers.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Would the noble Lord not agree in that case that of course this Bill would have been much more suitable 40 years ago, but because it is not 40 years ago it is out of place?
Lord JACQUES: I think the noble Lord knows that I am not speaking of 40 years ago; I am speaking of only a decade ago.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Well, I would suggest to the noble Lord that it was 40 years ago that this Bill ought to have been before this House rather than 10 years ago.
Lord JACQUES: That is completely inconsistent with the opinion of the International Labour Organisation, for which this House usually has very great respect. This Bill is modelled on Convention No. 137, a very recent Convention of the ILO. The problems which arise here are not peculiar to this country and the remedies we are applying here are again not peculiar to this country. This is a world problem and the kind of solution we are trying to apply is also being applied elsewhere.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 [Objects of the new Scheme]:
11.2 p.m.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 5, line 20, at end insert ("except with the permission of the local dock labour board.").
The noble Lord said: Perhaps it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I were to speak to this Amendment at this stage. It is in the nature of a mere probing Amendment to seek some clarification from noble Lords opposite, from the Government. It is a simple Amendment which would seek to allow local agreements to be made which might allow non-registered dock labour to carry on or possibly even to start doing some work which in other areas outside this particular local area where we are seeking agreement would be done by registered labour.
We believe that this Amendment would allow an agreement in certain areas to facilitate some operations possibly in small ports but also in various individual warehouses and cold stores and other small areas where cargo handling might be carried on. It really is much of a small port request. Alternatively, in other non-dock work areas which are at present defined in the Bill this is just seeking a temporary exclusion from
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registration at the moment. It is merely a gentle request, and we would seek the Government's views on whether this might be possible to a limited extent just while the Scheme is being set up.
Lord JACQUES: This repeats an Amendment which was moved in Committee in another place. It was said then that the intention of the Amendment was to give local boards discretion to allow local exceptions to the employment of registered workers on classified work, if this seems sensible in particular cases. In reply, the Secretary of State accepted that it might be necessary to include in the Scheme provision for local boards to allow particular exemptions. He thought that the words,
"subject only to such exceptions as it may provide"
in Clause 5(2)(b) were possibly sufficient to allow for a provision on the lines sought by the Amendment. But he undertook to consider the matter and on that understanding the Amendment was withdrawn.
It seems to my right honourable friend that there can be no doubt that the words,
"subject only to such exceptions as it may provide",
would enable the new Scheme to allow local boards to permit the use of unregistered labour on classified work, as does Section 10 of the 1967 Scheme. Under that section the local board has to be satisfied that the work is urgently required to be done and that it is not reasonably practicable for it to be done by a registered dock worker, and it is the declared intention of the Government to include a provision allowing such exemptions to be made in the new Scheme.
Lord LYELL: Did I hear the noble Lord aright that it is the intention of the Government to allow such exceptions as are contained in this Amendment? Or is he half-way, or more than half-way, towards accepting the purpose of this Amendment? I was not entirely clear in what he said about how the Minister had promised to consider it in another place. I think the argument is that he did not give entire satisfaction and that is why we are coming back to this subject in Committee here. Did I understand the

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noble Lord to say that the Government are giving further consideration to this problem and are likely, or indeed able, to grant limited exceptions in limited cases?
Lord JACQUES: What I said was that we have no doubt that Clause 5(2)(b) allows local boards under the new Scheme to permit the use of unregistered labour on classified work. That is already permissible under Section 10 of the 1967 Scheme. Under that section the local board has to be satisfied that the work is urgently required to be done and that it is not reasonably practicable for it to be done by a registered dock worker. It is the declared intention of the Government to have a similar clause in the new Scheme.
I think what the noble Lord probably has in mind is a more permanent exception. Our view of that is that if work needs to be permanently exempt it should never have been classified and the sooner it is declassified, the better.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I think I heard my noble friend saying that he was asking for this in the near future as a transitional matter and not, as the noble Lord has just suggested, as a permanent measure. From what I can see here it seems that the words,
"and subject only to such exceptions as it may provide"
in subsection (2)(b) would cover the case that my noble friend has in mind. I think the only difference is that he is saying, "except with the permission of the local dock labour board", but presumably the local dock labour board would also have to give its permission in the particular case. There does not seem to me to be much between the two.
Lord JACQUES: I am saying that if there is a temporary exemption in an emergency it can be done by the Bill as it stands. Secondly, I am saying that if what is wanted is that whole categories of work at smaller ports should be subject to a continuing exemption, then it should not have been classified and the sooner it is declassified, the better. We do not want permanent exemptions. If something is wrong let us put it right by declassifying it.
Lord LYELL: I am half-satisfied by what the noble Lord has said. I am very
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satisfied that he believes there is a valid point and also that it is covered already under Clause 5(2)(b), but we are of the opinion that such exceptions, even though they may be merely temporary, require to be written into the Bill in the form in which this Amendment is set out. My noble friend Lord Drumalbyn suggested there might not be a great deal of ground I between us on this. I am willing to accept the hint from my noble friend. I am grateful for the reply of the noble Lord, or at least part of it, but I should like to consider this before the next stage. With that said, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord LYELL Lord LYELL moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 5, line 30, leave out ("the cargo-handling zone") and insert ("a dock labour scheme area").
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
11.11 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN Lord DRUMALBYN moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 5, line 33, at end insert—
("but no work shall be classified as dock work unless it involves the handling of cargo which has been or is to be conveyed by sea.").
The noble Lord said: I think I can deal with this Amendment quite briefly. The purpose of the Amendment is primarily to ensure that no work done in connection with goods which are being, or are to be, transferred from one point on the mainland of the United Kingdom to another point on the mainland of the United Kingdom shall be classified as dock work. In my view, it would be manifestly absurd if inland distribution were caught up in the work classified as dock work, even although it came within the description of "work" in Part I of Schedule 3.
There are any number of warehouses and cold stores which are mainly, if not wholly, concerned with the mainland trade. Some of them may well be located in Dock Labour Scheme areas, however those areas are defined. But the principle proposed in the Amendment is applied to them wherever they are located, and the principle is that "work" should not be classified as dock work if it is not dock work. Noble Lords may smile a little at that, but I think we surfer enormously in legislation from things being deemed to be this and that, and we really must

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stop this. Certainly it should apply to all warehouses and cold stores outside Dock Labour Scheme areas.
My noble friends put down Amendment No. 51 which is more specific, but it seems to me to be more narrow. It proposes that the Board shall not recommend classification for any work on premises where the majority of work is not classifiable as dock work. They also propose to remove the option given to the Board in Clause 8(1) to recommend either that all work done in premises covered by Part I of Schedule 3, or some specified part of it, should be classified as dock work. That option under their Amendment would disappear, but my Amendment would remove the option altogether to classify dock work which is not cargo as defined in the Bill as dock work.
How this Committee considers "cargo" should be denned in the Bill has yet to be decided, and we shall get on to that at the next stage, or perhaps on Tuesday. But I submit that the Amendment is entire common sense, and I think it is entirely wrong to define "work" as dock work if it is not cargo and is not in fact dock work. I beg to move.
Lord JACQUES: With this Amendment two different interpretations are possible. First of all, the subsection confines "work" which may be classified to "work" within Part I of Schedule 3 and not within Part II of Schedule 3. "Work" in Part I of Schedule 3 relates to cargo, and "cargo" is defined in paragraph 8 of that Schedule as
"goods which are, or are to be, or have been, loaded as cargo in a ship…".
A ship is defined as a
"sea-going ship capable of carrying cargo…".
Lord DRUMALBYN: We shall come to that definition in due course. But it seems to me at the outset that that appears to cover all goods that are imported. All goods that are imported have been loaded on a ship.
Lord JACQUES: First of all, can we deal with the effect of the Amendment. The effect of the Amendment is to preclude the classification of work as dock work if it does not involve the handling of cargo which has been or is to be
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conveyed by sea. Would the noble Lord agree that that is the effect of his Amendment?
Lord DRUMALBYN: That is so,
yes.
Lord JACQUES: If that is the effect of it, the Amendment is unnecessary, because that is already covered by the Bill. The subsection confines work which may be classified to work which is within Part I and not within Part II of Schedule 3. The work in Part I of Schedule 3 all relates to cargo. "Cargo" is defined in paragraph 8 of Schedule 3 as
"goods which are, or are to be, or have been, loaded"
on a ship. A "ship" is defined as
"a sea-going ship capable of carrying cargo".
For those reasons we say that the effect which the noble Lord seeks is already established in the Bill without the Amendment.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I am very glad to hear that, but as they say in Scotland I ha'e ma doots. We will come on to talk later about cases where the work done on the premises can be classified "in whole or in part" as dock work. If it is in part classified as dock work, then I take it that only that work which is being treated as cargo will be classified as dock work. But if the whole lot is classified as dock work, even although only part of it is in fact import or export, then this, in my view, would be entirely wrong. And there is an impression—I cannot say more than that—that where warehouses are involved both in export and import and in inland distribution the whole of their work will be classified as dock work, or, if it is not, at any rate the same conditions will apply in the factory as if it were classified as dock work. Is that right or wrong?
Lord JACQUES: It would be possible for work which is not dock work to be classified if it was a small part of the work being done at the particular premises where that work became classified. But there is a clause in the Bill—I think from memory it is Clause 8(5)(c)—which lays down that the Board must have regard to the proportion of such work. I would say it could only arise where it was a small proportion; that is to say, if by far

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the greater proportion is imports and exports but there is a small amount of home produced, clearly it would not make sense to segregate it.
Lord DRUMALBYN: If that is so, what the noble Lord said previously is not absolutely correct. Nevertheless, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.20 p.m.
Lord DRUMALBYN Lord DRUMALBYN moved Amendmet No. 29:
Page 6, line 3, after ("accept") insert ("and fulfil").
The noble Lord said: We are dealing here with Clause 5(6), which says:
"In respect of any of the matters specified in paragraphs 1 to 3 of Schedule 2 to this Act, the Scheme may require dock employers and dock workers to accept obligations arising under a specified collective agreement (as for the time being in force) although not themselves parties to the agreement".
My Amendment would insert "to accept and fulfil obligations". The obligations that the Scheme may provide are not spelled out in Schedule 2 in any detail, but they cover the obligation as well as the right of dock workers to do work that is so classified, and the obligations as well as the rights of dock employers in relation to dock workers and dock work, including their obligations in relation to employment, termination of employment, remuneration, hours of work, welfare, training, sickness and injury benefits, and pension schemes.
The obligations are those arising under a specified agreement, whether or not the individuals concerned are parties to the agreement. In other words, the obligations we are here talking about appear to me to be—and I hope the noble Lord will confirm this—placed on individuals. The dock employers will have obligations under the Scheme which they must fulfil. To that extent the addition of the words "and fulfil" make little difference, so far as they are concerned. In any case, if they do not fulfil their obligations they may well have a strike on their hands.
Considering the special rights and privileges that may be expected to be conferred on dock workers under the Scheme, as indeed they are by the present dock workers' order, it does not seem too
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much for the Bill to require them individually to fulfil, and not merely accept, the obligations which arise under any specified collective agreement. The acceptance may, or may not, be by individuals. I would imagine it would be more likely to be a collective acceptance. The Amendment would leave it to the Scheme itself, as is provided for in Schedule 2, to specify the consequences of not fulfilling their obligations in the case of dock workers as well as dock employers. That is as I understand it. It would be a good thing to provide that if there are obligations and rights here they should equally, both by employers and employees, be both accepted and fulfilled. I beg to move.
Lord JACQUES: By legislation one can provide obligations and one can provide sanctions, but one cannot provide for fulfilment. In this particular case we provide for obligations in Clause 5(6). We provide for sanctions in paragraph 1 of Schedule 2. But we cannot provide for fulfilment. May I give an example—and I take one outside the docks. We can provide an obligation that a man shall not park in the road outside on Parliament Square, and we can provide a sanction, but we cannot provide that he then fulfils it. All we can do is apply a sanction when he does not accept the obligation, and what applies in the case or road traffic also applies in the case of the docks.
Lord DRUMALBYN: I agree that one provides the sanction where the obligation is not fulfilled rather than not accepted. It will be interesting to see, when the actual Scheme comes out, what encouragement the Government give to fulfilment. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Lord Aberdare): I have to point out that if Amendment No. 30 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 31.
11.26 p.m.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 6, line 32, leave out from ("areas)") to ("and") in line 33.
The noble Earl said: This Amendment is consequential on our carrying our earlier Amendment on the zones. I beg to move.
Lord JACQUES: I must do two things here; first, I must try to explain the purpose of this provision in the Bill, and, secondly, I must then try to explain why the Amendment is unnecessary. It was thought that it might subsequently be appropriate for there to be provisions relating to particular geographical areas and it would clearly be convenient if such areas could be the same as the dock labour areas. Power to alter the boundaries of these areas means that they can, if necessary, be adjusted accordingly. Thus, what we had in mind in providing for the power to change boundaries was power to change them as between one dock area and another where circumstances required a change.
I come to why the Amendment is not necessary, even though the clause has been amended. Clause 4, as amended by Amendments Nos. 10 to 12, is over-riding; that is, the half-mile provision is overriding. The Secretary of State can therefore alter only within the half-mile limit. We say that the Bill as drafted has a useful purpose, that the Amendment is unnecessary and that therefore the Bill should be allowed to stand to fulfil that useful purpose.
The Earl of GOWRIE: I am grateful to the noble Lord, so long as he is saying that the Bill as amended serves a useful purpose.
Lord JACQUES: No. What I am saying is that whether or not Clause 4 is amended, the provision in regard to the alteration of boundaries as between dock labour areas serves a useful purpose. In either case that is the position.
The Earl of GOWRIE: The noble Lord and I appear to wish to give each other the benefit of the doubt and, if that is the case, I beg leave to withdraw—
Lord JACQUES: Before the noble Earl seeks leave to withdraw the Amendment, and because I wish to be perfectly fair about this, let me say that the real point at which the noble Earl must look is the one I am making; namely, that Clause 4,
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as amended by Amendments Nos. 10 to 12, is over-riding. That is our view and I think he will agree, after consideration and taking advice, that that is the essential point.
Lord DRUMALBYN: It may be that when we come to examine this provision it will appear that there is no reason for these words to be included, because there may prove to be no contiguous boundaries. It is only if the areas are contiguous that it would be possible to alter the boundaries. Presumably we are talking about two separate things here. We have, first, the Bill before it was amended, in which case the local dock board areas would, I imagine, in every case, go to the five-mile limit and the dock board area would be the spread along that limit of a certain number of miles, as the London one was, I believe, and it would be a case of deciding where that limit came and the next dock board area started. But with the Bill as now amended, the boundaries of areas must be determined simply in accordance with their distance from the harbour land and for that reason of course they cannot easily be altered. Therefore, I understand that my noble friend wants to take them out as being redundant.
Lord JACQUES: I think we have to agree—it is a question of fact—that if the boundaries are not contiguous, then there is no purpose in these words; but we believe that there will be cases where the areas are contiguous and where, therefore, they will have a common boundary which might have to be changed.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Earl of GOWRIE The Earl of GOWRIE moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 6, line 42, at end insert—
("() Where the Secretary of State

(a) has prepared a New Dock Labour Scheme under section 4(1) above;

(b) has referred a proposal to the Board under section 4(7) above; or

(c) proposes to make an order under section 5(8) or 11(6) below he shall comply with the provisions of Schedule (Public Inquiries) to this Act.").

The noble Earl said: This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
Lord JACQUES: I do not agree that it is consequential. It is consequential only in the sense that the Committee has apparently decided a principle and the principle is continuing here. That is the only sense in which it is consequential. The Amendment which we have carried dealt with an entirely different thing—it dealt with the new Scheme. This Amendment would call for an inquiry for many other things, such as any order for changing the cargo-handling zone, any order for amending the new Scheme or any order for classifying or de-classifying. Therefore, what the Amendment is really doing is saying that the principle which was settled in Amendment No. 9 in regard to a new Scheme—that is to say, that there should be an inquiry—shall also apply to all these other things. I suggest that that is not consequential, but since the Committee has decided in principle we would not challenge it at this stage. Had it been a different time of the day I might have said much more.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Lord DRUMALBYN Lord DRUMALBYN had given Notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 33:
Page 6, line 42, at end insert—
("(11) Before laying a draft of an order before Parliament the Secretary of State shall consider all representations made to him and may, if he thinks fit, afford an opportunity to any person who has made representations to him to be heard either by him or by a person acting on his behalf.".
The noble Lord said: I do not move this Amendment because it is covered by the previous Amendment.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Lord STRABOLGI: We seem to have made good progress, and I suggest that this might be a good moment to finish for today. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.