Sitting of 10 January 1974

Preamble
The House met at half past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

EMERGENCY (TUC PROPOSALS)
Mr. Harold Wilson Mr. Harold Wilson (by Private Notice) asked the Prime Minister whether the public statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the proposals made by the Trades Union Congress represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): Yes, Sir. The General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress has written to me this morning to confirm the text of the statement made by the TUC's representatives at yesterday's meeting of the National Economic Development Council. He has asked me and my colleagues to give the TUC's proposals the most careful consideration and to make a positive response. I have invited representatives of the TUC to meet us at No. 10 Downing Street this evening.
Mr. Wilson: We welcome that reversal of the Government's policies. Is it not a fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer turned down the TUC's proposals nearly an hour before the Prime Minister, when he intervened in my speech yesterday, said that the TUC's document should be considered more fully, indeed by both of us? Was the right hon. Gentleman misleading the House or did he not know what the Chancellor was up to?
Secondly, since the Secretary of State for Employment on 19th December opened up an approach to the TUC, and since the TUC has now responded in the two statements of yesterday, including a still more positive statement to the NEDC than the one quoted in the House, may I ask whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer consulted the Secretary of State for Employment and obtained his agreement to the rejection of the TUC's initiative? Is the December initiative of the Secretary of State for Employment
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still open, or is it dead? Will the Prime Minister tell us what the Government are up to?
The Prime Minister: I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman's last remark is helpful in a situation of this kind. Perhaps I can explain to the House the situation which arose. At the beginning of the NEDC meeting yesterday afternoon, which was at the same time as the House was meeting and opening its debate and at the same time as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment was meeting the National Union of Mineworkers, the TUC's representatives, in the course of the discussions in the NEDC, put forward this suggestion. There had been no previous notification of it to the Government or to any of the other parties to the NEDC, or to the secretariat of the NEDC.
It was, therefore, not possible for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the other Ministers of the Government there to discuss beforehand with me or with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment what was being said in the NEDC. Therefore, I hope that the Leader of the Opposition will withdraw the last part of his remarks. There was absolutely no opportunity for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to discuss this matter with his colleagues.
Secondly, the House will wish to know that there was nearly two hours' discussion of this proposal in the NEDC, in which all present were able to ask questions as to what the assurance meant. As a result, they were able to form a judgment about the implications of this for the counter-inflation policy. It was, therefore, perfectly natural that afterwards the other parties to the NEDC, as well as the TUC, should express their current views on the matter to the Press, which is what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer did.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has read my right hon. Friend's statement in full, because it pointed out very clearly that, in his view, the proposal did not meet the needs of the counter-inflation policy. As I have said, his statement therefore represents Government policy.
The General Secretary of the TUC has now written to me asking to consider this further. I have, of course, replied that

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we are prepared to meet him and his colleagues, and to do so this evening. This will, I hope, be a continuation of our efforts, as I said yesterday, to find a means of dealing with wage claims which are based on reason and which support the counter-inflation policy.
Mr. Wilson: In his obvious discomfort the Prime Minister is making the situation more confused. As the House had before it only my quotation from the morning statement of the economic committee, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange to circulate in HANSARD the statement which the TUC made to Neddy yesterday afternoon on behalf of the general council? If it is a fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not consult the Prime Minister—although he was not very far away—and if he could not consult the Secretary of State, why is it that at about 3.30 p.m. yesterday, the Chancellor rejected the TUC's offer and yet, at about 4.15 p.m., the Prime Minister, after some needling, said that he would consider the morning proposals of the TUC? Why, after the Prime Minister had said that in the House, did the Chancellor at his Press conference again reject both statements made by the TUC? While we welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman is trying to get out of an ugly situation by what he has said this afternoon, will he try to explain yesterday's timetable?
The Prime Minister: I will tell the House about the timetable. I received the document from the TUC as I walked into the Chamber. I read it on the Bench while other statements were being made. The document was not circulated in Neddy until after the meeting was concluded. What the Chancellor said was based on nearly two hours of discussion with the NEDC. [HON. MEMBERS: "Discussions about what?".] On a verbal proposal put forward by the TUC. That is what the discussion was based upon. If the TUC had wished the council to have the document beforehand it could have provided the council with copies. As it was a verbal proposal the discussion was based on that.
Naturally there was a large amount of questioning, and rightly so, about what the assurance meant. The CBI expressed its views, as all members of the council
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are entitled to do. After nearly two hours of discussion my right hon. Friend said that in his judgment the answers which had been given did not provide a basis for dealing with the counter-inflation policy. I have now said that I and my colleagues are fully prepared to see the TUC this evening. [HON. MEMBERS: "What for?".] To see whether the TUC can go further and can give assurances that the counter-inflation policy will be preserved. It is essential that that policy is preserved. The Government are determined to preserve it.
Mr. Evelyn King: Will my right hon. Friend accept that niggling little questions about timing fall far below the level of events? Does he agree that what the country most hopes is that the talks will take place and that they will succeed?
The Prime Minister: I think that that is exactly what the country wishes. It wishes to see a settlement which maintains the counter-inflation policy and stage 3. It is the responsibility of the Government to ensure that that is so. The General Secretary of the TUC in his letter to me refers to the position of the coal mining industry. As I explained yesterday, and as my colleagues have said on previous occasions, there are different ways in which that position can be recognised. It is already recognised in the offer which has been made. It is already recognised in the proposals which I and the Secretary of State for Employment have made directly to the National Union of Mineworkers. If the TUC wishes to discuss the matter further, all of us are delighted to do so.
Mr. Thorpe: Will the right hon Gentleman say how the Cabinet can give careful and objective consideration to proposals which have already been instantly rejected by the Chancellor? Either he must confirm that the Chancellor's view does not obtain now, which is contrary to what he has just said, or he must say that it does. He cannot have it both ways. Does he agree that this is at least a helpful move towards a settlement? As the Government want a settlement more than an election, is it not a proposal which he should welcome? If the Chancellor's instant obstinacy is added to the Prime Minister's long-term obstinacy, God help this country.
The Prime Minister: I repudiate completely the outrageous statement made by the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe). The Chancellor did not instantly reject anything. There was a discussion, lasting two hours, by a responsible body—namely the National Economic Development Council. It is a gross distortion of the facts for the right hon. Gentleman to speak in those terms. In his statement to the Press, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said that he was grateful for the suggestion of the TUC but, as he explained to the TUC, it did not seem to him to provide an answer. That was a perfectly reasonable statement for my right hon. Friend to make after a two-hour discussion with a responsible body such as the NEDC.
The Government are dealing with a counter-inflation policy. If the TUC, in discussions with the Government, can give a complete assurance about the maintenance of the counter-inflation policy, the Government will be able to take action in those circumstances. We are not prepared to accept, and nor are employers, any situation unless there can be guarantees about the counter-inflation policy.
Mr. Fell: Will my right hon. Friend tell the House whether it is his feeling that during the past three years anything has happened which gives the Government, at any rate, any confidence that the TUC will be able to commit its membership to any such guarantees?
The Prime Minister: That is a very important question which was discussed in great detail and at great length by Neddy yesterday. Many questions were asked by the employers and other members of the council about the meaning of the assurance. I am prepared to go over this ground again and in full with the TUC when it comes to a meeting either tonight or at any other time. I am prepared to meet the TUC on a bipartite basis, if it does not want another meeting which includes the employers. I am prepared to meet the employers to hear their views. I am prepared to listen to all of them.
The question how any assurance which is given can be implemented is naturally one which we must discuss again with the TUC. It has been discussed many times in the past. The TUC has always said frankly that it cannot implement an assurance in that way. The situation may have
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changed by tonight. The TUC could not give such an undertaking yesterday. If it is able to discuss the matter and to show how assurances can be implemented fully, I am willing to discuss the matter with the TUC. We can then, perhaps, get a policy based on reason and moderation.
Mr. Ashley: Is the Prime Minister aware that the TUC proposals are a lifeline for a beleaguered Government? If he is not prepared to accept these proposals now, could he tell us when he is prepared to accept similar proposals, since he has now spoken to an American correspondent about holding out until the spring? Given the mood of the miners today, he may have to hold out until the summer or the autumn or next winter. How long does he propose to hold out, assuming that the situation goes on past next spring?
The Prime Minister: I have told the House that it is the Government's responsibility to ensure that industry can be carried on to the maximum possible extent in an orderly fashion with electricity supplies. That is our job, our responsibility. The whole House knows that, when it comes to the spring, the domestic demand falls greatly, as indeed does demand for electricity in industry. It will therefore be possible for greater resources to be made available to industry. But as I told the House yesterday, this is not of the Government's wanting ; it is forced upon the Government by necessity. This is something which the House has to face as long as the coal supplies do not come forward.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have the names of over 50 hon. Members who want to take part in the coming debate, which seems to me to cover very much the matters which are now being discussed. I can allow only one or two more questions.
Mr. Hastings: Would my right hon. Friend care to ask the Leader of the Opposition whether, with his famous memory, he recalls 1969 and the "solemn and binding" agreement from the TUC, and how far that got him and his Government?
The Prime Minister: I have already said that one of the important things to discuss with the TUC is, first, the nature

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of the assurance. Questions were asked yesterday afternoon—did it mean that other groups would therefore adhere to stage 3?—and the answer was "No". A large number of questions must be clarified before any action could be taken in this matter. I have already said that, as for the implementation of any assurance, we must understand from the TUC how such an assurance will be enforced.
Mr. Loughlin: Apart from any political differences that there may be in this country, is not the Prime Minister aware that we are facing literally the breakdown of the industrial and commercial life of Britain? Is he also aware that, as long as the miners are working five days a week, there is no possible way in which they can be beaten? The miners are working five days a week. They cannot be beaten. Would it not be better, even if the Prime Minister lost a little pride—we all lose pride at times: he would not be unique in that—to grasp the opportunity of these discussions with the TUC to get a settlement of the miners' issue, lest, in not doing so, the right hon. Gentleman drives Britain right into bankruptcy?
The Prime Minister: This Government have shown, by all the actions that they have taken towards them, that the miners are being offered the most generous settlement that they have ever had. It is a more generous settlement than other groups are getting——
Mr. William Hamilton: That is not true.
The Prime Minister: They have been offered a full and detailed discussion of their situation after stage 3 has been accepted. They have been offered this by the Secretary of State for Employment direct and by the Government as a whole.
I suggest therefore that, first, the miners are not able to work their full time because the safety maintenance is not being carried out. That is the main reason for the reduction in coal supplies. Second, I suggest that the hon. Gentleman also asks the miners to accept this settlement.
I fully accept the responsibility of the miners in the past. If they are responsible today, they can show it again by accepting this settlement, as 4 million
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other workers and trade unionists have already done, and then we will discuss in full the future of the industry and their own part in it. This Government have already demonstrated their good faith when, at the beginning of this year, they worked out with the industry its future, by stabilising output and by making a commitment of £1,100 million to it. After that, the country is entitled to expect that it will get a response from the industry. I believe that the miners, in their own interests and the interests of the country, would be wise to accept the present offer and then to discuss again the future of the industry.
Mr. Harold Wilson: It would help the debate which you want to get started, Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister would now give clear answers to two questions which he has not answered properly. First, with regard to yesterday's debate, when Parliament was debating this issue, we had from the Chancellor of the Exchequer outside Parliament a public statement at odds with what we managed to drag out of the Prime Minister himself in Parliament, which we thought was binding. Would the right hon. Gentleman explain which of the two was and is the true position of the Government? Second, would he tell us whether the statement of the Secretary of State for Employment before Christmas, as quoted by me yesterday, is still the policy of the Government?
The Prime Minister: The Secretary of State is about to address the House and he can deal in detail with the questions about what he himself said before Christmas. There has been no change in Government policy throughout. As for yesterday afternoon, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider that, in a responsible body such as the NEDC, where the Chancellor is in the chair, he is perfectly entitled to give his views after a two-hour discussion. He is certainly entitled to give his views, as a senior member of the Government.
As I told the right hon. Gentleman, I was going to consider the statement further. I did so directly the right hon. Gentleman sat down, and it has been considered further by my colleagues. We have had time to do it. I have now said to the TUC, in response to its invitation, that I will gladly discuss it with the

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TUC. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will therefore accept that, yesterday in the NEDC, all parties in the council gave serious consideration to what was said verbally by the TUC representatives, asked many questions about it and formed their attitudes as a result of the answers to those questions.
What the Chancellor said was that the assurance and the answers to the questions did not meet the Government's policy. That is what he said. He was perfectly entitled to say it in Neddy and he was entitled to say it to the Press afterwards. The right hon. Gentleman is now trying to create trouble without any justification.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Harold Wilson, business question.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Harold Wilson: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week, as far as he can forecast it at this moment?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior): Yes, Sir.
The business for next week has now been arranged as follows:
TUESDAY 15TH JANUARY—Supply (8th allotted day):
The Question will be put on all outstanding Supplementary Estimates and on the Civil Vote on Account.
Debate on a motion to take note of the Fourth, Sixth and Seventh Reports from the Expenditure Committee in 1972–73 and on a motion to take note of the role of the Expenditure Committee.
Third Reading of the Charlwood and Horley Bill.
WEDNESDAY 16TH JANUARY—Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill.
THURSDAY 17TH JANUARY—Second Reading of the Companies Bill.
FRIDAY 18TH JANUARY—Second Reading of the Safety of Sports Grounds [Lords] Bill.
MONDAY 21ST JANUARY—Supply (9th allotted day).
Debate on a subject to be announced.
Mr. Wilson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, while these subjects are estimable and of great importance and some have been pressed for by hon. Members in all parts of the House, nevertheless some of them may seem a little unrealistic against the present background? Will he give an assurance, as he was good enough to do before the Christmas Recess, that business can be rapidly changed and, above all, that he agress that the House must be fully seized of all aspects of the industrial situation, changes in the fate of particular industries and their problems, and particularly about progress towards a settlement?
Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that, in the light of the experience of the past half-hour, it is possible to have debated this subject in the House yesterday and to have the situation completely reversed overnight either by a decision of the Government or by sheer muddle within the Government, which the Prime Minister can no longer control? In these circumstances will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that it will remain fully seized of and in control of all aspects of the industrial situation in our debates next week?
Mr. Prior: Of course the House will wish to be seized of and take note of all that happens on the industrial front and to debate such events if necessary. It would be a lot better if we were to debate them in a calmer atmosphere than we have had in the past half-hour.
Mr. Hunt: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we have not had a statement on the current railway dispute since 11th December, the day before it started? In view of today's intensification of the dispute and the immense additional hardship and inconvenience being suffered by my constituents and many others, will he bear in mind that we shall expect a statement from the Government at the earliest possible moment next week?
Mr. Prior: I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment will be mentioning this during his speech in a few minutes' time.
Mr. Joel Barnett: Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for a whole day next week for the Minister for Energy to come to this House and answer Questions from

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Members who have serious problems being presented to them by their constituents?
Mr. Prior: There is a good opportunity to debate these things this afternoon, and, of course, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is to reply to the debate.
Mr. Burden: May I ask my right hon. Friend to keep the House and the country informed about the position on the railways? We have heard from a leader of the union about the anger of the rail-waymen. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such anger does not compare with the anger of our commuters who are trying to get to work during a three-day week under shocking conditions?
Mr. Prior: I think that that is a fair representation of the views of a lot of people.
Mr. Swain: Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to make a statement to the effect that the rail dispute is now over because his actions and those of Dick Marsh have closed the railways?
Mr. Prior: No, Sir. That is a travesty of the facts.
Mr. George Thomas: Has the Leader of the House seen Early Day Motion No. 128?
[That this House being mindful that freedom of the Press is freedom for the public to obtain full information on all issues of public concern, deplores the refusal of the Western Mail, the South Wales Echo and the South Wales Argus to publish an official advertisement from the National Union of Mineworkers and calls upon the newspapers concerned to exercise greater fairness in their presentation of the miners' case.]
This concerns the refusal of certain newspapers in South Wales to publish an official advertisement from the National Union of Mineworkers. In view of the nature of next week's business, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will give us an opportunity to debate this motion and to demand equal rights for mineworkers in the Press?
Mr. Prior: I do not think this is a matter for me to find time to debate. I
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notice that we have the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill next week. It might be in order then.
Mr. Adley: If my right hon. Friend is looking for a peg on which to hang a debate on the railways, may I ask him to look at Early Day Motion No. 125?
[That this House regrets the action ordered by the union leaders of ASLEF which has led to disruption of some train services particularly in the London area ; congratulates and thanks British Rail staff who are members of the NUR and the TSSA for their determination to work normally during difficult times when the travelling public are tempted to vent their anger on those who are not involved in the current dispute ; notes that as usual ASLEF militants in the London area are causing the maximum inconvenience to the public ; further notes that many ASLEF members are doing their best to work normally in spite of intimidation and abuse from a small number of militants ; notes the views expressed to the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East, by one ASLEF member that "I have been on the railways for 30 years and am not going to let some jumped-up so-called railway man in South-East London tell me how to drive my train" ; further notes a remark also made to the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East, by an NUR man, in reference to the current ASLEF dispute, that "it is not the men that want to do this, it is the union" ; and hopes that, whilst recognising the special problems which railway modernisation has brought for the drivers, no true railway man will allow himself to be used by those whose interests hardly appear to be connected with developing and extending a modern efficient railway service in Great Britain.]
Would my right hon. Friend consider this a suitable opportunity to allow people to express their views about the way in which a very few people in ASLEF, in the South-East of England, are holding hundreds of thousands of people to ransom?
Mr. Prior: The contents of my hon. Friend's motion would be in order in today's debate.
Mr. Kaufman: Can the right hon. Gentleman make a statement about the rearrangement of the Question roster to

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accommodate Questions from the Department of Energy? Can he tell us what will be the arrangements for Questions which hon. Members have already tabled on energy matters to the Department of Trade and Industry for answer on Monday 21st January and Monday 28th January?
Mr. Prior: Consultations are in hand aimed at devising a roster to provide a place for energy Questions. I hope that those consultations will take place today. I should like to see the roster published as soon after that as possible. There is the problem of whether we should give priority to the trade and industry Questions already tabled or to the energy Questions already tabled. I hope that this problem can be resolved and that we can meet the wishes of the majority of the House.
Mr. Benn: Further to that question, can the Leader of the House tell us whether Questions addressed to the Secretary of State for Energy will be answered by a Cabinet Minister, notably himself as Chairman of the Cabinet's Energy Committee, rather than being dealt with by a non-Cabinet Minister, since one of the objects of establishing the Department of Energy was to give a higher status to the problem for the purposes of parliamentary debate and consideration?
Mr. Prior: No, Sir. Questions in this House will be answered by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, as the whole House would expect. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that he has my title wrong, as he is wrong about most other things.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I want to get on with the debate. As I have said, I have the names of 50 hon. Members who wish to speak. I must take a moment to say that for the debate on Wednesday 16th January on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill hon. Members may hand into my office by 9.30 on the morning of Tuesday 15th January their names and the topics which they wish to raise. The ballot will be carried out as on the last occasion. An hon. Member may hand in only his own name and one topic.
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The debate on the Second Reading of this Bill is, in the words of Erskine May on page 729 of the 18th Edition,
"commensurate with the whole range of administrative policy".
It covers the Votes on Account for both Defence and Civil Services 1974–75, as set out in House of Commons Papers 11 and 44, and the Defence and Civil Supplementary Estimates for 1973–74 set out in House of Commons Papers 45 and 46. It will be in order, on Second Reading, to raise any topic falling within the compass of these Estimates.
I shall put out the result of the ballot later on Tuesday 15th January.

THREE-DAY WORKING WEEK
Motion made, and Question proposed, that this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Humphrey Atkins.]
3.7 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. William Whitelaw): The debate this afternoon is about the three-day week. What I hope to do first is to say a few words about the effects of that and what is happening, and then follow that, as the House will expect, by explaining what is being done and what we are seeking to do to remove the reasons for it, namely, the industrial disputes in the country.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister yesterday set out again the facts about coal stocks at power stations and the consequent necessity for the Government to introduce the three-day week and other measures to conserve electricity supplies. I need only repeat that this was the only reason for introducing these measures. It had nothing to do with putting pressure on anyone, nothing to do with confrontation, and certainly nothing to do with a deliberate attempt to cut people's living standards, and that is the end of the story.
Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn rose——
Mr. Whitelaw: It is too early to give way. Very well, then. The right hon. Gentleman has gone far enough on this course already. He can have another go.
Mr. Benn: If the right hon. Gentleman asks the House to believe that these were

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the reasons, why was there no consultation with the management and unions after the announcement was made and before it came into effect? Why have the Government issued a ban on the publication of all figures by public authorities directly responsible to this House?
Mr. Whitelaw: We have had those hares. They have all run round the course. [Interruption.] The answers to these questions have been given constantly. Indeed, a good many Opposition Members who are now shouting know perfectly well that what I have said before is the fact. They know it, and they do not need to shout any more.
I now wish to turn to some of the effects of the three-day week. No one can be under any illusion about the serious effect which the introduction of the three-day week and the associated measures is having on employment, on workers' earnings and on the finances of many companies. Equally, of course—despite the great ingenuity which is always characteristic of our people in time of crisis—there will be the immediate effect on output, particularly of manufactured products, as well as components and essential supplies. Eventually this affects us all, through the effect on the national economy, but the immediate effect bears more on some than on others.
Allowing for those who are exempted from the restrictions and those who, despite the restrictions, will be able to continue to work a five- or six-day week, though perhaps with shorter hours, we reckon that around a third of all employees are in jobs which could be restricted to three-day working. But many of these are still working four or five days—for example, where firms have their own electricity supplies or can undertake maintenance on non-electricity days.
The number currently registering with my Department's local offices as temporarily stopped is close to a million each day—that in itself is a most disturbing figure—and the number registering for one or more days in the course of the week would be about twice as many ; that is, nearly 2 million people. Many are not registering, because they are covered by guaranteed week arrangements
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agreed with their employer. These arrangements vary considerably. Some at least will apply for only a limited period, and the number registering for benefit with my Department is therefore likely to rise the longer it is necessary to continue the restrictions on working. The effects on output will also become still more serious through increasing disruption of supplies of components and other materials.
The House and the country will rightly ask what is being done to resolve the disputes which give rise to such damage and hardship. This is a question with which I shall now deal.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Whitelaw: I have just started my speech, and many other hon. Members wish to speak in the debate. However, if the hon. Gentleman's question is short I shall, of course, do my best to answer it.
Mr. Heffer: The right hon. Gentleman knows that if workers are allocated the first three days of the week they do not receive benefit for the last three days because Saturday is not normally a working day. This is a matter of great importance and it has been raised by both workers and management. Are we to have an answer from the Government on this very important question?
Mr. Whitelaw: What the hon. Gentleman has said is certainly a fact. I cannot give an answer to that point today, although I recognise that it is very important.
When I last reported to the House on 19th December there were three disputes threatening energy supplies. Since then the Electrical Power Engineers' Association has lifted its ban on out-of-hours working. This is welcome, and will have two beneficial consequences. It will enable fuller use of nuclear power stations, with some consequent saving of coal, and it will now be possible to give limited protection to some essential services if actual cuts in electricity supply become necessary. Equally importantly, it demonstrates once again that it is perfectly possible for groups of workers to reach reasonable settlements within the flexible provisions of stage 3. As the House was

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told yesterday, settlements covering millions of people have already been made.
I now turn to the serious and unresolved disputes in the mines and on the railways. As the House will know, yesterday I met the full Executive Committee of the National Union of Mine-workers, before the executive's meeting today, in order to make the Government's position absolutely clear, so that there was no possibility of any misunderstanding, and to hear how the executive now sees the situation. I believe I should report in detail to the House about this meeting. I told the National Union of Mineworkers' executive that I would do so and that I would be factual. I hope the House will listen to what I am about to say. I also hope that it will be seen that I have honoured the undertaking which I gave to the National Union of Mineworkers.
For my part, I told the executive quite categorically, as I have told the House, that the electricity restrictions and the three-day week were not directed at the miners or introduced as a means of putting pressure on anyone. I assured them that the Government were not seeking a confrontation with the miners. This had never been the Government's position, and it certainly was not in the Government's mind. I pointed out the manifest advantages to the miners of the £44 million offer available to them under stage 3. This would give substantially more to the miners than most others could get under the policy and that millions of others were in fact already settling for. The flexibility built into the policy afforded the miners a relative advantage which clearly recognised their claim for special consideration. It would restore their relative position post-Wilberforce, and this time, unlike 1972, they could be assured, through maintenance of the policy, that this position would not be rapidly eroded by the advancement of many other claims.
I also repeated the suggestion put forward by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when he, too, had met the full executive committee on 28th November. This was that if the National Union of Mineworkers was prepared to accept the settlement available to it under stage 3, the Government would be ready, immediately after normal coal supplies were resumed, to discuss with both sides of the
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industry the future of the coal industry, the manpower requirements and so the pay arrangements appropriate to a modernised industry in the longer term.
The members of the executive then put to me their points of view, and many of them spoke. They urged that the greater importance of coal for the economy in the changed world energy situation required that mining should be recognised as a special case. They saw this as necessary to retain and attract the men required to develop the industry. They referred to problems of pay structure, pensions and the particular health hazards of the industry. As they saw it, what was needed was an immediate improvement in basic rates beyond the limits of stage 3 to the extent, in the view of a number of them, of conceding the full National Union of Mineworkers' claim.
In reply to questions put to me, I explained that, while interpretation of the code was a matter for the Pay Board, the Government saw no room in stage 3 for any improvement in substance in the offer already available to the miners. I said that I nevertheless believed that stage 3 offered them the possibility of a very reasonable settlement—and, indeed, generous in relation to others—and that the existence of the counter-inflation policy gave them the only effective assurance I could see that their relative advantage would be preserved.
I assured them, further, that the discussions of the longer term which the Government were offering could certainly include the problems of pay structure, pensions and, indeed whether the Government should make any further contribution to compensate for the health hazards in the industry. In conclusion, I asked them to consider very seriously what I had put to them, and they undertook to do so at their executive meeting today.
As the House knows, at its meeting this morning the executive decided that the overtime ban should continue. I deeply regret this decision, which means that the three-day week, with all its hardship and damaging effect on the economy, will have to continue.
I now turn to the railway dispute before coming to the suggestion made by the TUC at NEDC yesterday.
Mr. John Morris: If the Secretary of State made the position absolutely clear to the miners yesterday and if the Chancellor rejected the TUC's proposals, what is the purpose of tonight's meeting?
Mr. Whitelaw: I am coming on to this point. Perhaps this proves that I should not have given way to the right hon. Gentleman, because I was about to come to the suggestion which the TUC made at the NEDC yesterday and about which there has already been an exchange in the House.
I turn now to the railway dispute. Since 12th December ASLEF has been taking industrial action which is causing considerable hardship to the travelling public, particularly to London commuters, many of whose services are totally disrupted. The action also poses a continuing threat to freight services, including the movement of coal and oil.
ASLEF has made clear that its action is not directed against the counter-inflation policy. It arises from complex negotiations between British Rail and the three railway unions on the restructuring of pay arrangements for the railway industry as a whole. It has always been accepted that any agreement reached would need to be notified to the Pay Board for approval.
The position is that both the NUR and the TSSA are working normally and are continuing to negotiate with British Rail within the industry's agreed procedure on the outstanding features of the restructuring proposals concerning their members. I understand that they are close to agreement.
ASLEF, on the other hand, has taken industrial action in pursuit of its own objectives, despite the fact that the agreed negotiation procedure has not been exhausted. In particular, that procedure provides for arbitration under an independent chairman on any issue which cannot be resolved before industrial action is taken. ASLEF only recently agreed to the appointment of a new chairman, who clearly must be acceptable to it. But attempts from a number of quarters to persuade ASLEF to end its action and either refer the outstanding issues to arbitration or resume negotiations
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with the other unions have all so far been unsuccessful.
British Rail has had to recognise the difficulty of negotiating with ASLEF alone, which represents only one out of every 10 of its employees, whilst industrial action continues and the other railway unions continue to negotiate within the procedure on the very same issue.
Given this position I still believe it is right that ASLEF should be urged to cease its action and return to put its case either in resumed negotiations or within the arbitration procedure available to it.
The board of British Rail decided earlier this week to send home for the remainder of the shift any driver who refused to carry out reasonable instructions. Any driver so disciplined would have the right of appeal and would be free to report for work again at the beginning of his next shift. This is the board's decision, and the Government have not sought to influence it in any way. I do not believe, however, that such action which began this morning can be held to be provocative or amount to confrontation.
It appears that there are some drivers who have not driven a train, on one pretence or another, since the action began four weeks ago, but who have continued to draw their full basic wage of £33 each week. I do not think anyone could be surprised that management found it intolerable to continue with the situation of that sort. It is, of course, too early to assess the full effects of this development.
Mr. Arthur Lewis: May I ask——
Mr. Whitelaw: No. I have given way twice. Many hon. Members wish to speak. I have some important things to say and I shall not give way.
Mr. Lewis: This is not a political point.
Mr. Whitelaw: I do not propose to give way.
Mr. Lewis rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.
Mr. Whitelaw: I can only repeat what you, Mr. Speaker, have said about a great many hon. Members wishing to address this House. I notice that the Leader of the Opposition took this view in his speech yesterday. It is therefore right that I should take the same point today and give as many hon. Members as possible the opportunity of speaking in the debate.
Mr. Lewis rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman really is diminishing his chances of being called later.
Mr. Lewis rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. Unless the right hon. Gentleman gives way the hon. Member must not remain standing.
Mr. Lewis: What about the danger—[Interruption.] On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am told by my constituents—[Interruption.] I am raising a point of order with you, Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.]——
Mr. Speaker: Order. It really will save time if the hon. Gentleman is allowed to put his point in silence.
Mr. Lewis: I am raising a point of order. I have had this point raised by my constituents, as I am sure hon. Members opposite have. It is said and reported in the Press that trains are now running without speedometers or with faults.
Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not a matter for the Chair.
Mr. Whitelaw rose——
Mr. Lewis: Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.]
Mr. Whitelaw: I really believe that I am acting in the interests of the House in trying to continue with my speech. If the hon. Gentleman has a particular point that he wishes to put to me, I am available to hear it from him in the House, but not during this debate.
There are those who argue that the cost of these disputes and the consequent disruption to industry and commerce——
Mr. Lewis: What about the cost of life?
Mr. Whitelaw:—is so great, in both economic and social terms, that it would be better to settle them at any price. That is a view which the Government—indeed, any Government—cannot possibly share.
The cost is very great, as we all recognise. But what is the price of settlement? It is not just the cost of meeting all the demands of one particular group which decides to press its case by industrial action, even if one were sure exactly what that final bill might be. In such circumstances would other groups be prepared, as so many have up till now, to accept settlements at the reasonable levels represented by stage 3? Or is the price of settling one dispute the acceptance by the whole of the community of the terrible economic and social costs of wage inflation which is out of hand?
At the meeting of the National Economic Development Council yesterday the TUC representatives put forward a suggestion in this respect. They said that if the Government are prepared to give an assurance that they will make possible a settlement between the miners and the National Coal Board other unions will not use that as an argument in negotiations for their own settlements. Earlier my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said that the Government have given careful and immediate consideration to this statement, and he has invited the TUC to discuss it with him this evening. Our aim will be to discover whether the TUC suggestion offers any prospect of effective help in resolving the present problem.
Let us be clear, however, about the very real and substantial difficulties in the TUC approach which I pointed out to the House on 19th December and which, for once—as I have been quoted by the Leader of the Opposition—I should like to read. I do not normally like reading my own words, but I shall read these—[Interruption.] If it is out of order, I shall not quote myself. However, perhaps I may be allowed to quote something that I said that I consider to be extremely important:
"If the present arrangements were to be further changed—because of the new energy situation and current shortages—to the miners' advantage, even more than under the current policies, let us be perfectly clear that other trade union leaders would have to underwrite that position. They would have to accept substantially less for their members. They would have to declare that they would accept

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leaving the miners as a special case compared to their own members, thereby making sure that the miners' relative position in the wage scale was effectively maintained. They would have to make it clear that in negotiations they would not seek to follow the miners' lead. We are all aware of the difficulties which would face any trade union leader in giving an assurance of that sort."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th December 1973 ; Vol. 866, c. 1366.]
That, if I may say so, was exactly what I said then and it was exactly the burden of what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said yesterday—[Interruption.] I am coming to some of the questions which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister very properly put forward in the exchanges earlier today and which have to be asked and considered in discussions. I do not think that anyone can doubt that.
The community—the miners included—cannot afford a solution which adds to inflation and which risks an acceleration of inflationary wage demands across the board. As I have told the House before, we must never forget that we protect the interests of many people who have no organisations to speak for them and who suffer particularly from the effects of serious wage inflation.
Stage 3 of the counter-inflation policy was designed to be and is fair to the community as a whole, and I profoundly believe that it offers already a thoroughly fair and reasonable settlement to the miners.
In considering the TUC proposals, therefore, it is necessary to ask not merely whether it would afford a means of settling the present dispute but whether, in doing so, it would also secure the maintenance of an effective counter-inflation policy. If one group is treated as a special case, can other union leaders undertake not to press their claims for their members outside the limits of stage 3, and can the TUC secure the support and consent of its member unions to act in this way? Without an effective counter-inflation policy we should, on the clear evidence of 1972, be back on the road to rapid and uncontrolled wage and cost inflation, which would undoubtedly claim as one of its inevitable victims the real advantages which are available to miners under stage 3.
These are very real and difficult questions, which have to be considered
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and answered in discussion, but I must repeat that my colleagues and I hold strongly to the view that stage 3 as it stands today provides a fair and flexible counter-inflation policy and must be upheld. This is not the same as saying that there can never be special cases. But what constitutes a special case ought not to be decided by sheer trials of strength. That would be a mediaeval conception of justice. What is needed is a procedure for considering such claims objectively.
The Government recognised this as long ago as last March when they asked the Pay Board not only to advise on the treatment of anomalies arising from the standstill but thereafter to report on other problems of pay relativities which may arise both within and between groups of employees.
I now expect to receive the Pay Board's report on this wider problem towards the end of this month. It has taken a little longer than expected because the board received a great volume of evidence from various quarters about many different types of pay relativity problems. The chairman of the board has already made clear that the report will not deal with specific cases. The evidence put to the board will serve rather to help in trying to establish principles by which relativity problems can be handled.
As Sir Frank Figgures has also made plain, this is an enormous subject, and the board can do no more initially than suggest ways in which, as a society, we can begin to tackle some of the problems which are fundamental to any pay policy. I confirm that these earlier intimations of the likely nature of the report that the Government will be producing remain correct. The report will therefore go right to the heart of the problems of pay determination which we have been discussing with the CBI and the TUC over the past 18 months.
Her Majesty's Government very much hope and expect that the Pay Board's report will indicate a significant way towards finding a more acceptable way of settling these problems in the future.
Mr. George Cunningham rose——
Mr. Whitelaw: The report will form the basis of further consultations with the

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TUC and the CBI, and the Government will wish to press ahead with those consultations as quickly as possible.
Mr. Cunningham: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Whitelaw: I am sorry. I am not giving way, as I explained before.
Mr. Cunningham rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. If the Secretary of State does not give way, the hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham) must not remain standing.
Mr. Whitelaw: I have made it clear already why I am not giving way. The Leader of the Opposition and others did not give way yesterday, and I shall not give way today.
Mr. Cunningham: They did occasionally.
Mr. Whitelaw: They did occasionally, and I have given way two or three times already.
Mr. Cunningham rose——
Mr. Whitelaw: No. I am not giving way.
Mr. Cunningham rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Whitelaw: I am not giving way. As I was saying, Her Majesty's Government very much hope that the Pay Board's report will indicate a significant way towards finding a more acceptable way of settling these problems in the future.
There is no point in pretending that relativity questions are other than fundamental and far-reaching, and it may well take time to reach the agreement for which we shall aim with both sides of industry in developing procedures for handling relativity claims effectively and fairly within a counter-inflation policy.
Mrs. Barbara Castle: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Whitelaw: I will give way to the right hon. Lady.
Mrs. Castle: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way to one of his predecessors who had to handle
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a prices and incomes policy. Is not it a fact that the Government always foresaw the relativity struggle as part of phase 3? That is why the Government asked the board to make the report available to them by the end of December. If that report had been made available in time and was in the hands of the Secretary of State now, can he deny that the whole country would have demanded that he should act on it? Therefore, will not he act on it by the end of January?
Mr. Whitelaw: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for making clear herself the reason why I gave way to her and not to other right hon. and hon. Members. As for the matter which she raises, I understand the position perfectly clearly. The relativities report was asked for and was to be published as soon as possible. The reasons why it was not published by the end of December have been made clear. It was never said that it would be implemented within phase 3, but it was called for within phase 3. That is the position.
I have one further point which I am entitled to put to the House. In view of what the Leader of the Opposition persists in saying about me and the responsibilities of my job, I wish to make a reply to him.
Of course, any Minister in my job has the task of seeking to resolve industrial disputes in the best interests of the nation. Certainly he must pursue the course of conciliation. But if conciliation is meant to imply plain weakness or lack of resolution, then I reject that view as decisively as did all my predecessors, including those in the right hon. Gentleman's own Government.
All Governments and all my predecessors have on occasion found it necessary to point out that conceding some claim pursued through industrial action would, in the view of the Government of the day, damage the national interest. It always has been easy to buy industrial peace in the short term at a considerable price. If that price is so high as to cause real damage to the rest of the country in the long run, through a severe twist to the inflationary spiral, then quiet firmness and determination backed by reason must, be right and should be supported on all sides in this House. It has been in the past. It

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should be now. If democracy as we know it is to continue, it will have to be in the future.
Mr. Michael McGuire: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will you impress, particularly on Government Front Bench speakers, the tradition of the House that this is a debating Chamber and that on occasion right hon. Members should give way to what I would describe as the PBI of the House—the back benchers—as we, too, perhaps have something to contribute in the debate? The Prime Minister was grossly guilty of discourtesy to me and others yesterday in that he did not give way to us.
Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for the Chair.
3.40 p.m.
Mr. Reg Prentice: The Secretary of State for Employment is always engaging in his manner. He treats the House to a mixture of seriousness and joviality and he utters a series of clichés in a parade-ground manner in such a way as to disguise the fact that he has nothing whatever to say to the House. One is bound to start from the position that his was the third speech from the Government Dispatch Box in this debate to have contained not one constructive new proposal for resolving the crisis which is facing Britain.
I think that everyone in this debate, on both sides of the House, has a duty to be constructive, and in the course of being constructive it is vital that we avoid the trap that some commentators in the newspapers are trying to set for us, of equating a constructive attitude with a lack of criticism. It is not only the right but the duty of the Opposition to criticise the Government, and it is absolutely vital at this time that in the debate in the House we all attempt frankly to recognise what is the nature of the crisis facing the country. I do not believe that we can begin to have an intelligent dialogue on the matters that we are supposed to be discussing in this debate until there is the beginning of a recognition on the Government Front Bench of the extent of the growing crisis over which the Government are presiding.
The Prime Minister's speech yesterday was the most lamentable failure of a
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Prime Minister to measure up to events since the days of Neville Chamberlain—and I can tell him that I wrote this page of my notes before I read the letter from Lord Coleraine to a newspaper. The facts are that since 1970 we have seen develop the fastest rate of inflation that we have ever known in peacetime, the highest rate of unemployment since the 1930s—indeed, we are now overtaking the 1930s—the worst state of industrial relations since the General Strike of 1926, the highest balance-of-payments deficit on record, five states of emergency in three and a half years, and now a three-day week with incalculable loss to the country in both material and human terms.
When every allowance has been made for external events, when every benefit of the doubt has been given to Ministers for the failures of others in the community, trade unionists, management, or whoever else they may be, the fact is that it is basically a record of the Government's failure ; and an element of candour and humility in the speeches of Ministers would at least be a healthy beginning to a realistic assessment of the situation that we now face. It is a matter of urgency to find answers and particularly it is a matter of urgency to settle the miners' dispute.
In his speech at the end of yesterday's debate, the Lord President put to the Opposition a challenge which is becoming a bit of a bore because we have heard it so often. The suggestion is made that we should advise the miners to go back on existing terms or we stand condemned of being half-hearted about efforts to fight inflation. This is a gross distortion of the facts. It should not be necessary to sketch in the background—I do so only briefly—of the attitudes that we have taken from the Opposition Front Bench in recent years.
First, in all stages of the counter-inflation policy when we have voted against the Government, as we have, we have done so on the basis of a reasoned amendment calling for stronger and more effective measures against inflation. Secondly, we have not uncritically supported every trade union and every wage demand. Indeed, in the current ASLEF dispute my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and other members of the Opposition Front Bench, including myself, have said, as Ministers have said,

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that ASLEF should have gone to arbitration rather than take industrial action as it did.
I go on from that to say that of course most of us would dissociate ourselves from the statements of a minority of the miners' leaders who interpret this wage demand in a class-war setting and in a setting which is unacceptable to us as Social Democrats. My right hon. Friend made the statement yesterday that we wanted to see a settlement, not a surrender, and that phrase implied a degree of compromise by both sides.
Certainly we would urge the NUM executive, given the chance, to propose to its members the cessation of industrial action in favour of a settlement. The plea that we are making is that the moderate majority of that executive be given that chance, and that is what it is being denied at the moment by the intransigence of Ministers.
One need not give every reason why the miners are a special case. There are two clear reasons, and they were both conceded by the Lord President last night. One is the nature of the job itself, the arduous, dirty, dangerous, unhealthy work that most of us would not be prepared to undertake for hundreds of pounds a week. The second element of the special case is the desperate manpower shortage in the industry.
Here let me remind the House of the facts that were put before us in a most moving and eloquent speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) on 19th December, when he reminded us that hundreds of miners were leaving the pits every week and that new seams in Durham and in South Wales and several other coalfields were not being worked for lack of manpower. He reminded us of the prospects for the new coal face as Selby and of the inability of the industry to exploit them because of lack of manpower. He reminded us that development work was being held up because of the need to keep the coal face itself manned, so that, as he put it, the industry was devouring its own seed corn. This was an urgent national crisis in a basic industry before the oil situation affected the country, but it is made all the more urgent by the oil situation.
It is said by Ministers that one cannot have a special case and operate an effective
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counter-inflation policy. I believe that the correct answer is that one cannot operate a counter-inflation policy without special cases. To admit special cases is difficult, for the reasons that Ministers have repeated ad nauseam, but to do without special cases is to wreck the whole delicate manpower structure in the complicated arrangements in the industry.
It was just possible in phase 1 and in phase 2, lasting as they did for a year, to accept the distortions of manpower policy that were imposed by a rigid code. Now, however, more than a year after the beginning of that policy, the manpower effects of that rigidity are damaging our economy to a far greater extent than any benefit which may be assumed to result from the counter-inflation policy itself. That cannot continue. There has been discussion about the report on relativities. The main difficulty here is that it was commissioned too late. I assume for the sake of my argument that we have a statutory incomes policy of the sort now in force—I do not like it but I assume that it is there. In those circumstances the relativities report should have been commissioned earlier and implemented by now so as to provide some way of recognising urgent and exceptional manpower needs in vital industries and of responding to them.
Of course, embarking upon that course of action would mean that others would stand in the queue and would claim to be a special case, and the Government would have to resist most of those demands. However, if they resist all such demands they bring us to the chaos we are now experiencing and they cannot avoid the responsibility for doing that.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman wishes to give a fair description of the position. The anomalies report was commissioned directly the Pay Board was set up in order that it could come into effect under stage 2. It reported, and a considerable number of the anomalies which arose in stages 1 and 2 have been settled by agreement. That was the approach that we told the TUC and the employers we wished to adopt at once.
When the Pay Board was set up, it was commissioned to carry out the relativities report. The House will recognise that, because of the complexity and importance

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of the evidence which it received and which has been referred to it, it is difficult to produce a worthwhile report dealing with the principles of relativities in less time than has been taken. But surely, in dealing with this matter, we can take credit for having adopted a process for removing the rigidities created by the anomalies, and we hope to be able to remove other rigidities through the relativities report.
Mr. Prentice: The point I am making and which I claim is being proved by experience is that, in spite of the apparent extra flexibility of phase 3, it is still much too rigid to cope with the problems of an extreme manpower shortage. Therefore, we needed a policy of relativities at an earlier stage. If we concede to the Prime Minister the point that the Pay Board has rightly taken a long time in preparing the report, the answer to him is that Ministers should have acted anyway. They have the power under the Counter-Inflation Act to award a settlement over and above a settlement approved by the Pay Board under the code. Ministers can use that power at any time for recognised and exceptional cases.
During his answers to questions earlier today the Prime Minister kept confusing two phrases—a "phase 3 policy" and a "counter-inflation policy". I put it to him that his own counter-inflation policy—I do not argue whether it is right—is wider than phase 3 or any phase, because the Act which covers all the phases gives Ministers the power if they so choose to deal with a special case for reasons which appear good to them. They can do it at any time and they could have done it already in the miners' dispute. They will have to do it sooner or later.
The TUC statement should have been welcomed by Ministers as a very great help to them by their own stated criteria. Let me quote from the letter which Mr. Murray has sent to the Prime Minister today and which summarises in excellent fashion the longer statement that was made:
"We indicated that the General Council accept that there is a distinctive and exceptional situation in the mining industry. If the Government are prepared to give an assurance that they will make possible a settlement between the miners and the National Coal Board other unions will not use that as an argument in negotiations for their own settlements."
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This is a remarkable commitment and a most difficult one. It is a statesmanlike commitment and it arose——
Mr. Robert Redmond Mr. Robert Redmond (Bolton, West): Did Hughie Scanlon sign it?
Mr. Prentice: I am glad that question was asked. The statement arose from a unanimous decision of the Economic Committee of the TUC General Council, including the leaders of the biggest unions. [Interruption.]
Mr. Harold Wilson: The Government do not want a settlement.
Mr. Prentice: The Secretary of State quoted his own statement in the December debate. If that statement has any meaning at all, what we have had today is a response to what it was asking. If the right hon. Gentleman is saying, as he seemed to be hinting just now and as the Chancellor appeared to be saying yesterday in his reactions at the "Neddy" meeting—that somehow they want the whole constitution of the trade union movement changed overnight so that the TUC can give written orders to unions which will automatically be followed—they know that they are asking for the impossible and that the statement by the Secretary of State before Christmas was meaningless. I want to give the right hon. Gentleman the credit for meaning what he said before Christmas. If he meant what he said, I beg of Ministers when they meet the TUC, either tonight or in the near future, to reverse the policy announced by the Chancellor yesterday.
In the half-hour of questioning earlier this afternoon the Prime Minister had a very uncomfortable time. The Chancellor was unable to be here for it, and I accept that. The Prime Minister had to say to the House, first, that the Chancellor turned down the initiative without any consultation with his colleagues and, secondly, that he did so after two hours of debate but before he had seen the statement in writing. In other words, in a moment of great national crisis, one Minister——
The Prime Minister rose——
Mr. Prentice:—on his own turned down——
The Prime Minister rose——
Hon. Members: Sit down.
The Prime Minister: I did not say that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor had not seen the statement in writing. I said that the statement in writing was circulated by the TUC only at the end of the meeting.
Mr. Prentice: I thought the Prime Minister said that the Chancellor had reacted during the meeting and before seeing the statement in writing.
I have only one thing further to say about the Chancellor. In the whole history of industrial relations in the last year or two, all his interventions have been counter-productive. I advise the Secretary of State to use any influence he might have to tell the Chancellor to keep clear of any industrial disputes.
The important thing, however, is what happens now. This remarkable initiative by the TUC gives Ministers the chance, if they want it—that is the key question—to take a new initiative in trying to solve the miners' dispute without repercussions on other wage claims. That is what they have said they wanted in the past and that is the opportunity they now have. If they do not take that opportunity, the country will know who is to blame for the current situation and for all our troubles.
A number of suggestions have been made for ways in which the offer to the miners could be improved without a fundamental breach of the Government's counter-inflation policy. In his speech in December my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley made five suggestions and, incidentally, he made further suggestions in an excellent letter to The Times which was published on 7th January. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made three basic suggestions yesterday, and other suggestions have been made.
I simply wish to enlarge on two of these suggestions, as examples, although there are many others which could be used. I do not wish to detain the House too long. First, I urge the Secretary of State to look personally at the question of waiting and winding time. This proposal was allowed to run into the sands too easily last week. The question whether extra hours spent in the pit are, by custom and practice, part of the working week is one which deserves more examination by all parties involved than
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seems at this stage to have been given to it.
I hope that the National Union of Mineworkers will push this matter rather harder than it has been doing, and that the National Coal Board will respond. I put the question directly, and I shall be glad to give way now to an intervention. Alternatively, I invite the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to reply to the point later. If the National Coal Board wishes to respond to an extra demand under this heading, which would substantially increase the offer, can we be guaranteed that Ministers will not lean on the board to prevent its taking that course? I should like an answer to this either now or at the end of the debate. [Interruption.] I do not insist on an answer now, but I shall certainly expect the Secretary of State to refer to the matter at the end of the debate.
My second point concerns the Secretary of State's reference, a few minutes ago, to a Government contribution in relation to health hazards in the industry. This could mean several things—higher supplementary benefits, more money for medical services, and so on. One suggestion in the letter from my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley to The Times was that there should be what he called a danger and industrial disease award—in other words, an addition to the pay offer to all miners on account of the risks they run in the industry. If this were done it would, I believe, be regarded as fair and reasonable by the public as a whole.
Let me repeat the basic facts that have been previously stated in debates of this kind. In 1972, part of the price that we paid for our coal was that 64 men died in the pits, 454 men were seriously injured, 58,000 were injured to the extent that they needed more than three days off work, and 626 new cases of pneumoconiosis were contracted. In an industry which demands that kind of price from those working in it there is a case for recognising in the pay structure not merely generous treatment of victims of injury and disease, but a payment to the men for the risk they are running. I hope that this can again be considered.
I do not want to go on making these suggestions—many have been made by others—but I put this simple point to

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Ministers. By one of these methods, or a combination of two or three of them, a new package could be offered to the miners which would not be a fundamental breach of the counter-inflation policy and which would not lead to repercussions in other wage claims. The one thing which seems to be missing is the will to get a settlement.
I do not wish to spend any time on the ASLEF dispute, other than to mention one matter. In agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman that arbitration is the right answer in this case I am bound to make the point to him that he is referring to one of the rare cases where arbitration is readily available. We should note in passing that one of the worse results of Government policy in industrial relations has been effectively to kill arbitration in this country in recent years. Arbitration as an effective force for industrial peace has been destroyed.
In the miners' case we are reduced in the House to bandying our own amateur proposals back and forth when settlement of the matter should be in the hands of experienced arbitrators. They should now be undertaking this task.
Tomorrow, members of the parliamentary committee and the National Executive of the Labour Party will meet to discuss a draft policy statement. I think that I can with confidence anticipate the decision on one point, namely, that a major proposal in that statement will be for the establishment of a new conciliation and arbitration service, to be available to both sides of industry, at national and local level, to provide a new initiative for the settlement of industrial problems peacefully and reasonably, to the satisfaction of all parties.
In this debate, we are at least to some extent discussing the operation of the three-day week. The earlier part of my speech has been rather longer than I intended, so the reference that I shall make to it will be brief, but I wish to put it in this context. A great deal more needs to be said by Ministers about the way they see it, about the effects of it, and about what they are doing in regard to those effects. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides will want a lot more information from Ministers than they have been given so far. Indeed, the Secretary of State will have a rather difficult
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job tonight because, three Ministers having said nothing, he will have to make four speeches in one.
For the effects of the three-day week at present we are indebted, I think, to the National Economic Development Office for the clearest picture so far of the impact nationally. I wonder whether we could have confirmation from Ministers, or perhaps a different view from Ministers, on the effect of its operation now and its likely operation in the next few weeks.
There appears to be a total of about 4 million people, or perhaps more, who are, in effect, unemployed every day. In the first place, there are the 500,000 who were unemployed to start with. Then there are those laid off and registered. In addition, there are the married women who are laid off but who are not registered because they are not fully insured, and on top of that there are those who are covered by guaranteed week agreements but who are not actually at work. Thus, there are, as I say, about 4 million involved, with the number increasing all the time—and that is the daily figure, so that the number affected during the week will be much larger.
Output, we are told by the NEDC office, is expected to be about 20 per cent. less this month if the three-day week goes on for the rest of the month. Steel production is down 50 per cent. already and is likely to be down to a third of full capacity by the end of the month. We are talking here of the cumulative effects, and these effects will obviously get worse as time goes on.
We are talking of the effects of the three-day week which are hardest felt by those least able to bear them. In business—we should hear more about this——
Mr. J. R. Kinsey: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting, in the light of all these effects, that we should give in to what amounts to blackmail, on top of the 16½ per cent. already offered?
Mr. Prentice: That intervention was a waste of time. I have already, at some length, made clear my own attitude to the dispute. The facts which I am mentioning now simply underline the urgency of achieving a settlement.

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I was about to refer to the situation in commerce and industry. Clearly, it is the small firms which are suffering most. When the CBI gives formal and, I think, reluctant quasi-approval to the Government's three-day week, someone should put to the CBI the challenge which is often put to the trade unions. If the CBI took a ballot of its membership at this moment, it would, I believe, evince a very different verdict on the Government's policy. During the last year or two we have heard a good deal from hon. Members on the Government benches about small businesses and the need to preserve and protect their position. Some recognition should be given to what is happening to small businesses under the present policy.
It is not only a matter of the shortage of steel or the shortage of fuel ; there is the sudden interruption of cash flow for businesses which depend upon the quick settlement of accounts for their survival. The consequences of this are devastating, and will be shown in the bankruptcy figures very soon.
As regards the effects on employment, again it is those least able to defend themselves who suffer first, as in any period of short-time working or unemployment—the disabled, those in indifferent health, those who have recently returned to work after a period of illness and who are the last to sign on and the first to go. Those are the first victims of the present policy. [Interruption.] I believe that all hon. Members on both sides can confirm this from experience in their own constituencies during the past few weeks. The situation is as I have described it, and it is becoming worse all the time.
I now turn to the question of the social effects. In the next week or two, we ought to have debates on this matter. We ought to consider the effect on the social services, on supplementary benefits, on the rules for unemployment benefit, and the rest. Among the matters which have reached me in the past week or so, it has been clear that special attention should be given to the rapid payment of supplementary benefit, if necessary cutting out some of the normal inquiries, in order to cope with the problems of people in urgent and unexpected need.
For example, married women with dependent children who are separated
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from their husbands and who normally receive a maintenance allowance but who now find that allowance cut off because of the short working week have an urgent need, in a matter of days, for supplementary benefit. There are also the problems of people who are unemployed after an uneven work record, leaving them under-insured. These also have an urgent need for supplementary benefit. There are many such cases, and they should be kept under constant review. Ministers should explain to the House the steps which are being taken by the Government centrally to deal with all these human problems.
Another example—to take the matter across Departments—is the whole question of school meals and the regulations governing payment. It is provided that local education authorities may make short-term remission of charges for families whose incomes fall temporarily. All local education authorities should be reminded by the Department—if they have not been reminded already—of the need to implement that provision generously in the present situation.
Those are merely random examples of matters which we shall have to return to again and again, and at greater length, if the present situation continues.
Inevitably, in this debate, we have concentrated our attention on the immediate aspects of the problem facing us. I have done so today, and most of those who spoke yesterday did the same, concentrating on the miners' dispute, the effect of the three-day week, and so on. I suggest that this country is facing a series of interlocking crises. We faced severe trouble even before the Middle East war sparked off the oil crisis—certainly before the current industrial disputes.
It seems to me that in 1974 we face the need for drastic adjustments, some of which we are only beginning dimly to recognise. We are, I believe, at the end of an era—an era of cheap energy, cheap food and cheap raw materials. It is a crisis which affects the whole world, and especially the developed economies of the West. Britain is less able to resist this new challenge because of the weaknesses which we face already—the weakness of our balance of payments and internal weaknesses such as the low rate of investment, poor industrial relations and the effects of Government policy in

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many respects. We are thus more vulnerable and less able to withstand the challenge.
There are no simple solutions to the problems confronting us. There are no easy answers. There is certainly no scope for "at a stroke" promises from any direction. The situation will demand efforts and sacrifices and radical changes of attitude from all sections of society—from trade unionists, from management, from professional people, from everyone. I believe that more and more people are coming to realise this, and there is a latent patriotism in the British people. People are wanting to respond to the national interest if they are given a clearer lead as to what the national interest is.
It is against that background that two basic things should be recognised by the Government. The first is that their policies have aggravated our national malaise beyond all recognition. One policy after another—the Industrial Relations Act, the Housing Finance Act and the tax concessions to the rich—has had a devastating effect on national morale by dividing people at a time when we most need national unity.
But the other thing is that, whatever the content of Government policies, the people of this country are entitled to be treated as intelligent adults. Time after time Ministers have been covering up the facts. Time after time they have been engaging in facile optimism. Right up to the middle of December we were being told by Ministers that we were going through a boom and that the boom would probably continue for ever. People are entitled to be told all the facts, the good facts as well as the bad. They are entitled to a clear indication of policy and a clear appeal to their sense of purpose.
I conclude by reminding the House—perhaps I am quoting what I have said previously ; I apologise for that—of something said by a person greatly respected by everyone in the House, the late John F. Kennedy, in his presidential address in 1960. He asked the American people to stop asking what the Government of their country would do for them and to start asking what they could do for America. It is that kind of lead which has been lacking in Britain in the last three and a half years. If that kind
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of lead were given by the Government, by a Government who had the moral authority to give it, everyone—miners, trade unionists and people in all classes of society—would be willing and ready to respond.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to raise a matter which concerns the information available to the House for the debate today. Yesterday, the Lord President of the Council assured us that nothing would be concealed and that all information would be available. He said that there would be a weekly report of coal stocks. That was in relation to the electricity restrictions.
I went to the Library today and asked for the latest of these weekly reports. I was handed a report dated 1st January. I was also told that the report that would come out next would come tomorrow, although it would come in future on Thursdays, as it was expected that the Ministers concerned would make a statement in the House today.
I have not yet heard any statement of the latest coal stocks. As we do not have this weekly report, I hope that we shall get it before the wind-up speeches. I should have thought, Mr. Speaker, that if the Government wished to show that they were giving facts, we would get a report at the beginning of the debate and not at the end of it.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. James Prior): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The reason that the figures have not been published in the form suggested by the hon. Gentleman in his point of order is simply that it was thought that the House might like to hear these figures from Ministers during the debate and that this would be a courtesy to Members, and that the report would be published tomorrow in the ordinary way.
But if hon. Members feel that there are certain figures contained in this report which they would like to have, they can either be given by me—I cannot do that on a point of order, but they can be given by me now for the benefit of the House—or I will arrange for them to be published as soon as we can make them available for the House this afternoon. There is absolutely no problem on this matter.
4.19 p.m.
Sir Paul Bryan: I start by saying one thing to the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) regarding the TUC offer. The right hon. Gentleman must know that, after the last miners' strike, the Wilberforce settlement itself was not necessarily used as an argument by other trade unions for higher settlements, but he is surely not naive enough to imagine that its existence did not set a pattern for higher settlements.
Mr. Benn: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman at the beginning of his speech but I have just had the opportunity to consider what the Leader of the House said—that he would be ready to make a statement during the debate giving hon. Members figures which otherwise would not be available until a few minutes before the Division. As the Leader of the House has offered to make this statement, I wonder whether we may ask, through you, Mr. Speaker, that the statement be now made, so that hon. Members will have more information than the Government have so far been ready to make public.
Mr. Prior: Further to that point of order. Mr. Speaker. I have just arranged for these figures to be put into the Vote Office immediately.
Mr. Reginald Freeson: Incompetence!
Mr. Prior: It is not the least bit incompetent. It was done for the convenience of the House, so that they should come from Ministers first. It would be far better, Mr. Speaker, and far more in order, if that were the course that we adopted.
Mr. Speaker: This is a matter not for the Chair but for the right hon. Gentleman. Sir Paul Bryan.
Sir P. Bryan: Perhaps I had better start again, Mr. Speaker. I want to make a comment to the right hon. Member for East Ham, North about what he said regarding the TUC offer. He must know that after the last miners' strike the Wilberforce settlement was not necessarily used as an argument for higher settlements by other unions, but he is surely not so naive as to imagine that those settlements were not influenced by the miners' settlement. The miners' settlement set
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a pattern for the settlements which followed. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is absolutely right to discuss this TUC offer with the trade unions tonight, but I find it hard to see what can come out of it.
Mr. Prentice: The assertion that the miners' settlement was followed by comparable settlements has been disproved by the statistics. Those are set out very well in an article by David Wilson in The Observer of last Sunday. I commend that article. It shows that most of the settlements reached between the time of the Wilberforce Inquiry and the beginning of the pay freeze were at a very much lower level than that awarded to the miners.
Sir P. Bryan: I am not claiming that they all followed 20 per cent. or 23 per cent. rates, or whatever the Wilberforce rate was. I am claiming that they were higher than they would have been had there been no Wilberforce settlement.
On the question of the three-day working week, my impression is that both management and employees are making the best of a very trying situation. I visited Dewhurst's clothing factory in my constituency on New Year's Day. There was very little absenteeism, even on this very special statutory holiday. Everyone was cheerful and was getting down to it, and this seems to be the general pattern. Management is showing great ingenuity, and, in well-run concerns, there is a spirit of co-operation. The reports given in the Financial Times of today show that in general production is much higher than was expected. But with 1 million or more people signing on at the employment exchanges and with reduced pay packets, this is a very grim situation. I find that most people, rightly or wrongly, cannot imagine how it can continue for very long.
I make two practical points for my right hon. Friend's consideration. I am continually asked whether Saturday working is essential. It is highly unpopular with the work force, for obvious family and social reasons, and with management, which in many cases has to pay overtime rates. Would it be possible for all industry to work on Wednesdays and for all shops to be shut on that day to compensate for the extra electricity used? That would make an enormous difference

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to everyone and at the same time it would dispose of the unemployment benefit anomaly which was raised by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) in an intervention.
Secondly, on a rather less serious note, will the Minister tell us whether the early closing down of television is saving a significant amount of electricity? I declare an interest here as a director of a television company, but I am voicing the interests of thousands who resent being put to bed by an apparently kill-joy Government, especially those who are laid off work, are not tired and are in no hurry to go to bed.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on resisting the pressure from many sides for petrol rationing. The retiring Minister for Industry said over the weekend that there would be no rationing in January but that he could give no guarantee beyond that point. I impress on the Secretary of State what a blow petrol rationing would be, superimposed on a three-day week. He knows what a high percentage of workers go to work by car, frequently over long distances which are served by a minimum of public transport. Even with more sharing of cars, petrol rationing would greatly add to the present dislocation.
However well industry is tackling the three-day week, let us not be deceived into thinking that it can continue at the present level of activity. Things are bound to get worse. Modern industry is so interdependent that the failure of a small number of firms supplying key parts can slow down or close down a disproportionately large number of other firms. Even before the three-day week, supply and labour bottlenecks were already slowing down industry. The 50 per cent. cut in steel production will shortly have its effect on firms which have come to the end of their stocks and on some who may have come to the end of their financial resources as well. If these fears are fulfilled, an appreciable number of firms might not be able to work even for three days. What will the Government do with the electricity that is saved in this way? Will plans be prepared to turn additional firms back to full-time working?
The debate is about the three-day week, but we should also be thinking of
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how to clear up the mess which will be left after the three-day week. The switch back to full-time working will not be an easy or rapid process if by then industry has run down its steel and other important stocks. More important in my view will be the difficult task of maintaining good industrial relations in particularly frustrating circumstances. This is no time for Dunkirk speeches, but it is the time for people to be told the stark truth from which they can make their own judgment and their own plans.
Government spokesmen have sounded too euphoric over the last months. To give an example, my right hon. Friend reported on television during his Midlands tour in the first days of the three-day week. It was a good report, but the impression he gave me was that if it were not for the coal miners everything would be fine, with industry loaded with export orders and so on. That was, in a way, an accurate report, but, I think unintentionally, he gave the impression that all would be well once we were over this particular hurdle.
I find that people are expecting soon a relaxation of stage 3. The truth is that the next few years will see the first actual drop in the standard of living since the war—whoever is in power. The huge rise in our bill for essential raw materials, with oil costing four times what it cost last summer, makes this absolutely certain. The present industrial and fuel troubles have put paid to the 3½ per cent. growth target. The three-day week will have put up unit costs by an unknown factor. All this must add up to an increased inflation rate and, consequently, in due course a stage 4 that is more and not less severe than stage 3.
These are truths that should be made plain to the country now. It might be said to be a tale of woe, but these truths need not daunt a resilient community if the people understand why these misfortunes have befallen them and can see that sensible steps are being taken which are likely to lead to a more hopeful future. The Opposition can have their fun blaming the Government for all our discontents. I am content to leave the country to judge where the blame lies. The people are not too blind to be unable to see that every industrial country has parallel if not exactly similar troubles. Even Japan, embarrassed by its surplus a short time ago, is

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running into deficit and a 30 per cent. inflation.
The energy crisis is, of course, the most outstanding of our troubles and most immediately affects the work and daily lives of our people, but, paradoxically, energy is also our hope for years to come. In a few years' time we can be better placed in this respect than any other industrial country except America. It is, therefore, essential that our policies for power should be—and be seen by all to be—vigorous. The first task of the new Secretary of State for Energy is to convince the country that this is so. Here he has quite a task on his hands.
The Selby coalfield spans my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison). Indications that a thick seam existed in the area appeared about 10 years ago. Today I read in the National Coal Board's Selby Newsletter the following paragraph:
"It is on the basis of this sort of detailed information that a decision can be made as to where a new mine could be driven once the question of if there is to be a mine is settled. Detailed planning could take anything up to two years ; sinking and equipping the mine might take another five or six and it could be a total of ten years from the ' go ahead ' to the pit reaching full production."
This delay may or may not be essential, but the period between the discovery and the implementation is something like 20 years and that does not give one a great impression of urgency. I should be glad if, in his wind-up speech, the Secretary of State would give the House and my constituents the latest timetable for development of this important project. I should like at the same time to pay tribute to the National Coal Board for the trouble that its officials have taken to inform and reassure my constituents who live in this beautiful area on the environmental aspects of the scheme.
Nuclear energy is a mystery to most people, including myself. It just seems that we are taking an astonishingly long time to get to the promised land, despite being first in that race.
The main reassurance required is on North Sea oil. So much depends on that. Our experiences this year and the burden of the oil bill until we have our own supplies put a supreme responsibility on the Government to make the very best
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of this national asset. I believe that the creation of the new Department of Energy under one of our most able Ministers is a very good start in this direction.
4.34 p.m.
Mr. Donald Coleman: Most right hon. and hon. Members will have had brought to their attention examples of how crazily the introduction of the three-day week has affected industry and commerce. Although I intend to speak mainly about the steel industry, perhaps I may be permitted to draw to the attention of Ministers some of the ridiculous anomalies in my constituency.
I have had representations from the dental profession and from dental technicians about a crazy anomaly that has arisen as a result of the regulations brought in by the Government.
It would appear that if a dental technician is engaged in his practice under the same roof as a dental surgeon or dentist he is exempted from the regulations and works normally. However, if he were to move and work in one of the commercial dental laboratories, which carry out 95 per cent. of the work of all dental practices, he would find himself caught up with the three-day working week. This is a stupid anomaly, particularly when it occurs in places where the work done is, so I am told, wholly for the National Health Service. This, of course, means that there is a discrimination against the NHS patient, as opposed to the private patient.
Another anomaly referred to me affects those who are engaged in small businesses, and in shops such as ladies' hairdressers. I am glad that some help, although rather meagre, has been given to them by the Government, but what is the position in respect of rates? These people are not able to operate then-business full time. Is there any possibility of their being given some amelioration in rating? If that is so, can the local authorities also have an understanding that the loss of revenue in that respect will be met from Government sources?
The main burden of what I want to say concerns the steel industry. The problems confronting it have always been threefold—international, structural and

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economic. The present dispute concerning the availability and utilisation of energy, and the Government's handling of the economic situation in general, are likely to do irreparable damage and greatly aggravate any future solution to the steel industry's problems.
The steel industry is in no position to relax its investment drive. Not only is finance required to increase capacity ; it is required for new production techniques, to meet consumer demand for an increasingly diversified range of products, for social requirements and for better environmental protection.
Financing in the industry had to meet two criteria—volume and continuity. Any investment programme must have a financial plan extending over several years and be capable of guaranteeing its completion. In February 1973, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry issued his White Paper on the 10-year development strategy for steel. This report, although belated and inadequate, recognised the need for the developing strategy with investment
"to enable the British Steel Corporation to make a vital contribution to economic growth and at the same time, to assure Britain's place among the major steel producers of Europe and the World."
On 17th December 1973, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his crisis measures, announced that the BSC—the only nationalised industry to be affected—would have to slash £70 million from its 1973 capital programme. The reaction of the chairman of the corporation, Dr. Finniston, was to say:
"We have to invest capital if we are going to produce for the future. If you really believe you have long term prospects, the thing not to do is slash capital investment. And one thing you certainly do not do is to cut one of the essential components of the economy, which is steel. The steel industry is one of the few industries with a positive balance of payments."
These capital investment cuts and the broader energy crisis brought about by the Arab oil output reduction will certainly have to bring about a basic reassessment of the corporation's investment strategy. Of course, should the overtime ban in the coal mining industry be really prolonged and result in the cooling and collapse of coke ovens, the sum needed to rebuild them would be
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twice the cuts suffered in the Government's capital cut-backs. If damage to blast furnaces, and so on, is calculated, a phenomenal sum would be required even to get the steel industry back to the present level of production.
The effect of the increased oil prices on high density oil-using plant, such as open hearth furnaces, is likely to make them even more inefficient in comparison with the blast furnace/BOS route than previously, and it would certainly speed up the closure of the plants at present operating that kind of furnace.
It is one thing for steel workers to come to terms with rationalisation and closures on an overall development strategy, but it is quite another for them to accept them without consequent development and capital investment. The relationship between the steel industry-one of the commanding heights of the economy—and the economy itself works both ways. A basic industry like steel is so tied up with the level of economic activity that it is hypersensitive to the periodic stop-go pattern which has been imposed upon the economy.
Foreign competition is not only simply a question of structure and efficiency: it extends into pricing, imports and exports, and is now exaggerated by the world shortage of steel-making capacity to meet demand. Without international agreement during the world energy and resources crises regarding the availability and utilisation of commodities, the situation as a whole will deteriorate.
Not only is international trade in a bad way ; the domestic economy is plummeting into the worst period we have seen since before the war. Without soundly-based economic growth and international agreement on energy and basic materials such as iron and steel, long-term stability in financial investment in the steel industry is bound to be seriously damaged. If the steel industry is, as it is said to be, the economic barometer of the economy, the position we find it in today means that we in this country could well be doomed.
The corporation, as has been said, has reduced steel output to the level of 50 per cent. of normal operations in order to conserve its dwindling coal stocks. It will not be possible to sustain this level for more than a few weeks unless there is a

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speedy settlement of the coal and railway disputes. Let everyone understand clearly that the cry to the Government is, "Put aside your pride and see to the resolving of these disputes, which are destroying the industrial capacity of the country."
The remaining stocks of coal in the steel industry would have to be used largely to prevent blast furnaces and coke ovens from going cold. Rolling mills at present will be able to keep going a little longer only if supplies of ingots and semi stocks can be obtained, which it is clearly difficult to do as there is a world shortage and the transport difficulties arising from the railway dispute are also holding up the dispatch of finished steel. Electric arc steel making is seriously affected by a 35 per cent. cut in electricity usage. This type of steel making accounts for 20 per cent. of the corporation's output, and production will be substantially reduced by the cut in electricity supplies.
The corporation has decided to keep all its 226,000 employees on a guaranteed week—for the time being. This decision, however, can only aggravate the situation that the corporation finds itself in. It is at present losing £13 million a week, and with the cutback of 50 per cent. that figure will be inflated. The weekly wage and salary bill amounts to another £10 million, and when it is coupled with the massive increase which the corporation will have to pay for energy supplies, such as oil, the seriousness of the financial implications becomes even clearer.
Members of the TUC Steel Advisory Committee have had to fight hard for the continuance of the guaranteed weekly wage in discussions about the energy problem facing the BSC and the corporation's forward plans. In the immediate short term the jobs of at least 100,000 BSC employees are at risk. In the long term, if closures are forced, the plants might not re-open and jobs will not be available for the men involved.
Yesterday, in what was recognised by both sides of the House to have been a great and responsible speech, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition urged the Prime Minister to consider the need for a more flexible approach towards the dispute in the mining industry. I have tried to show that it is vital to the steel
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industry that a settlement comes sooner rather than later. We cannot afford to have the Prime Minister rigidly regarding phase 3 as the Hatter regarded his castle. The Prime Minister said that it is not too late yet to come to a settlement. Let his own words penetrate his own thinking.
4.47 p.m.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Coleman) has forcibly reminded the House how far reaching and comprehensive is the impact of the crisis which has resulted in the premature resumption of our sittings. He has reminded us that in coming days we are likely to hear the word steel even more frequently than the word coal. He reminded us, too, that when regulations must be introduced which affect the working habits and operations of the whole of our industry, they penetrate in a most remarkable fashion into all the recesses and interstices of the life of every family and person in the country.
I agree with the point from which the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) began—namely, that the debate is much more concerned with the future than with the past. It is more important to know where we are to go from here than how it was precisely that we got here. Nevertheless, there are practical reasons for spending a little time in recalling the earlier part of the story.
I make no apology for once again reminding the House, and particularly my right hon. and hon. Friends, of what was our view not so long ago on the policies which have led us to this stage. I do so in no spirit of criticism or of recrimination, but because I believe that there are practical and important deductions to be drawn from recalling the fact that when the Conservative Party was elected by a majority we told the country that we utterly rejected the philosophy of compulsory control of wages. We said that we had seen the Labour Government's statutory control of wages fail and that we did not intend to repeat it.
We did not make those statements as a matter of mere theory. We did not make them, as it were, in the margin or idly. They arose not only from theory but from the observation, both in this country and elsewhere, that the attempt to combine Government policies which in

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themselves are inflationary with the endeavour to regulate and control prices and wages has invariably and inevitably led to an impasse and to irresolvable conflict between the demands of Government on the one hand and the realities, as the private citizen sees and knows them, on the other. We were speaking not merely from theory but from experience.
It is not a matter of recrimination but of practical utility that we should remind ourselves today of that fact. By remembering it, we understand that we are not the victims of unforeseen and unforeseeable accidents. Our present experience and our present predicament was foreseen and forecast in principle. It was exactly what we had seen happen before. It was exactly what had led us to renounce the very course of action upon which we subsequently entered. We are, therefore, obliged not to seek an escape by accusing external events, such as the movement of forces and prices in the outside world, for the crisis with which we have to deal.
More important still, we are freed from the danger of supposing that either we or the country at large are the victims of the perversity of a group of our fellow citizens. It is all too easy and all too usual to invoke the human frailities which are common to us all. The words "greed", "selfishness" and "folly" are too often on the pens of journalists and on the tongues of politicians to explain the impasse in which the Government and the country find themselves. It is salutary to be reminded that it is an impasse which was always implicit in the course of statutory control of prices and wages upon which we engaged.
When we renounced that course we did not do so merely as a contrast to a voluntary prices and wages policy. The accent was not specially upon the word statutory or compulsory. We renounced it because our whole conception of the cause and, therefore, the cure of the scourge of inflation was such that the attempt to regulate individual prices and wages, either by compulsion or by agreement, was irrelevant. In a sense, we have the grim satisfaction of seeing the realisation and verification of what we ourselves predicted.
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However, I turn from the past, from how we got here, to where we are to go from here. Everyone knows that a way forward must be found. The country knows that a way must be found. That is why the House is sitting today. However popular and common it may be to ridicule or to abuse Parliament, yet, when the nation finds itself confronted with a perplexity, with a threat, with a peril, there is a kind of sense, a strange sort of instinct, from one end of the country to the other, that debate in this House must be an ingredient in the solution.
In the debate which now enters upon its second day, there has been a new note—or at any rate, if it is not an entirely new note, a new emphasis. This new note or emphasis is summed up in the word ''relativities". Never in so few hours in this Chamber has the word "relativities" been used so often. In one speech after another, from one side of the House or the other, hon. Members have dilated upon the unique nature of the job of the mineworker and upon the self-evident necessity that, if an industry is to be adequately manned, the remuneration of that industry—not its absolute remuneration but its remuneration relative to other occupations—must somehow reflect the special characteristics of that occupation.
But then, of course, other hon. Members have immediately and equally rightly drawn attention—one of my hon. Friends a few minutes ago called out, "What about the trawlermen?"—to the fact that the work of the mineworker is unique only in the sense that every job is unique. The more one reflects, the more one will realise that, in every calling, in every trade, in every industry, there are characteristics of health, of danger, of hours of working, of length of training, of prospects, of demands upon the family or upon mobility and so on, which render that calling unique as against all the others. We all know that, for an economy to survive—if an economy is not to seize up altogether—the pattern of remuneration has somehow to correspond with that immense complexity of all the jobs and all the functions which have to be performed within it.
Very recent events have driven home another lesson—that these relativities are not static. One cannot just assess the relative value of a miner and then walk

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away and leave it, in the hope that that will stay in exactly the same place. Why, almost overnight, with the oil crisis, all the relativities were changed again: the relative importance of various occupations, various forms of production, were shifted, and shifted unpredictably—shifted not once and for all but in a way which went on progressively. So, when we recognise, as the House has been recognising in this debate, that the basic essential of any economy is to get as near as possible to the right relativities—the relativities which produce as nearly as possible the right pattern as between all the jobs and functions which have to be performed in society—we are talking about something which is not static but about something which is dynamic.
There are those—this has been once or twice suggested in this debate—who imagine, but they imagine fondly, that there is some mechanism which can be devised, some formula, some computer, from which it would be possible to read off on the tape what should be, at any given moment presumably, the precise relative remuneration of a mineworker, a trawlerman, and all the rest. It is a delusion. No such mechanism exists or can possibly be contrived. It is beyond human imagination.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment referred to the report which is to be forthcoming from the Pay Board upon relativities. I was fascinated to observe in his reference to it the word "principles": the report will tell us about the "principles" on which relativities are to be determined. I am sure it will—because that is all that it can tell us. Any hon. Member can jot down on the back of an envelope the factors "in principle" which affect the relativities between the remuneration of one occupation and another. They have appeared in one White Paper after another: every time that we have had a prices and incomes policy—which is four or five times at least since the war—there has been a White Paper where, sure enough, one can find the principles of relativity.
But how to get from the principles to the practice? Having admitted that we need more miners relative to other occupations, is it 5 per cent., 15 per cent., 16½ per cent., 18 per cent. or 20 per cent. increase on
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their present remuneration which will be just right to do the trick? No White Paper, no pay board, can give the answer to that. If Sir Frank Figgures were not just a devoted and able public servant but the Archangel Michael himself, it would be beyond his capabilities to assign the correct relative remunerations to all those whose pay is supposed to be controlled by law or to be teased out of the interstices of stage 3 of the Price and Pay Code by that august agency.
We had better admit it: there is only one way, at any rate in any free country—I use the term in a sense which would be equally accepted by hon. Members opposite as by those on this side—in which this job can be done. It is, alas, an imperfect way, but human methods are imperfect. It is by bargaining ; it is by negotiation ; it is by trying it and seeing ; it is, to use a more pompous word, empirically—by the process, whether it be between great unions and monolithic employers or in the tiniest firms, of finding the point at which the interests of those concerned most closely meet, the point at which both of them can manage to get on with what they have to do.
I say, therefore, that the first necessity, the first key which must be turned in the lock for us to escape our present prison, is to return to negotiation, to free negotiation, in the sense that my right hon. Friends must say to the National Coal Board, "You are the management in this industry, you have to man up this industry, you know better than we and you probably know very well the point at which, with the National Union of Mineworkers, you can secure the manning up of your industry to the point required for your operations. It is your job to do that, and you are free to do it untrammelled by the theory and the theology either of stage 3 or of the Price and Pay Code or"—I mean no offence by saying so—" the Counter-Inflation Act itself. "That is a necessity. I doubt whether there is an hon. Member in the House who does not know that that is a necessity.
But, though it is one of the keys, it is not the only one necessary to turn the lock. There is another. Everyone says" Yes, we recognise there must be negotiation, we must find the meeting point. But

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what about the whole mythology, the whole demonology of leapfrogging, of inflationary wage claims and all the rest? In short what about inflation?"
On 17th December my right hon. Friend the Chancellor began to supply the second half of the solution. Why did my right hon. Friend come before the House with drastic proposals for, at any rate, the reduction of the rate of increase of public expenditure over the next 12 months? He did not do it because he thought it would be specially popular. He did not do it because he was urged to it by his colleagues, the spending Ministers in the Cabinet—at least I doubt whether they urged him to it. He did it because he and they were convinced that inflation, to use the old jargon, was being fuelled, or would be fuelled, by a wide gap between the total of public expenditure and the total of public revenue.
He accepted, what he has often accepted in the past and what is not seriously denied in any quarter, that whether or not it be the sole cause, at any rate the overwhelmingly most important cause of inflation is the manner in which Government manage the relationship between their outgoings and incomings. Labour Members know that just as well as my hon. Friends, for in the last years of their tenure of office the Labour Party put that into practice. Indeed, I will go so far as to say that they put it into practice with more thoroughness and determination than any administration had previously done since the war.
We cannot at one and the same time so manage the national finances that we constantly increase the total volume of monetary demand and then turn round upon one section after another of our fellow-countrymen, when they endeavour by the only practical method available so to settle their relative remuneration as to enable the economy to work, and accuse them of being the villains of the act and the cause of the very inflation of which they are the victims or on the tide of which they are being carried.
So the second key which must be inserted and turned in the lock is that the finances of Government in the coming months must be so regulated and controlled that they do not add to the inflationary pressure which exists already
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and which I fear has some time yet to work itself fully through the economy. Those two together—free negotiation and bargaining, industry by industry or firm by firm, and a non-inflationary conduct of the finances of this country—provide the only way in which we can extricate ourselves from an impasse over which the country is in danger of tearing itself to pieces, which is perhaps even worse than temporarily impoverishing itself.
Mr. Frank Tomney: Has the right hon. Gentleman learned nothing from history? Has he learned nothing from 1931? How many millions of unemployed does he want in this philosophy he is now advocating of a free-for-all, when the weakest go to the wall in defence of this principle and only profits matter? How much does he want?
Mr. Powell: What I have learned and what I fervently believe is that neither high and stable levels of employment nor prosperity nor anything that a nation can desire is to be obtained by debauching its currency ; that the mere manufacture of additional money, the mere process of inflation, though it may create temporary euphoria, is no basis upon which, for any class in the community, security or prosperity can be built. It is in that belief and in the belief that it is demonstrated by history that I speak as I do.
Over and over in this debate until it has become almost a refrain——
Mr. Tomney: This is a different world from the world about which the right hon. Gentleman is philosophising. Since 1931 we have had a period of relatively full employment in which standards have risen gradually throughout the whole working population. People look forward to a progressive raising of the standard of living. What the right hon. Gentleman is advocating is a return to a free-for-all which will punish the weaker sections of our community, irrespective of whether they have been punished before.
Mr. Powell: The community in which we have lived since the war is one in which hon. Members on both sides, Governments of both parties, have designated inflation as the greatest threat, not only to the prosperity of the country, but to employment itself. I am not speaking with the voice of only one side of the House. Both sides have agreed upon that.

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Over and over in this debate hon. Members have said—and I am sure that in saying it they have spoken in the sense of their constituents—that from this conflict we want to emerge with no decisive victors because we want to emerge with no decisive losers. We shall do that only if all the elements in the conflict will return to their own responsibilities and discharge them.
It is only if the Government will discharge the responsibility, which they alone can carry, of so managing the national finances that they do not fuel inflation, that employers in turn can discharge their responsibility, which is to ensure that they man up their industries and firms to the best advantage and production of which they are capable ; and it is then that the trade unions can discharge their responsibility, which is to get the best possible real return, real remuneration, for their members without exposing them to the risk of being priced out of the market. The healthiest community is one in which all are acting upon their own responsibility. My plea to my right hon. Friends tonight is that Government should do what lies in the hands of the Government: if they will do that, they will find there will be no ground to complain either of unions or of employers.
5.14 p.m.
Mrs. Barbara Castle: The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) attracted a good deal of applause from some of my hon. Friends——
Mr. Tomney: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am not on your list but may I ask whether it is possible for you to call me later to deal with the argument of the right hon. Gentleman?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu): Order. I am afraid that is not a point of order and is hardly worthy of this debate.
Mrs. Castle: I am perfectly sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney) would have been able to discharge that task admirably. I merely wish to say a few words in reply to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. As I was saying, he attracted a good deal of support from some of my hon. Friends until he referred with approval to the
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deflationary policies of the last Labour Government. That only goes to show that the right hon. Gentleman has the unique quality of attracting support from different parts of the House at different times according to which side of his economic coin he is showing. The first side he showed us won some applause from us. The second side was rejected vigorously.
In substituting for my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North, I should like to tell the right hon. Gentleman that the Opposition reject both the mechanistic extremes which have been offered to us—the mechanistic extreme of the Government's prices and incomes rigidity and the mechanistic extreme of allowing these problems to be solved purely by monetary means. We believe that politics—psychology, if you like, or human relations—are now inextricably interwoven with the solution of our economic problems. Therefore, while keeping free collective bargaining, we have to find a way of winning the understanding, co-operation and consent of the collective bargainers to make sure that their sectional demands do not wreck the wider interest.
I do not pretend that this is easy. As the right hon. Gentleman said, no policy is perfect and no solution is easy—we are living in a very human world—but that is the policy to which we are committed and to which we shall return, because his alternative is incompatible with full employment.
One point on which I agree with the right hon. Gentleman is that under the present Government we have managed to get a rigid prices and incomes policy and, at present, 3 million unemployed—an achievement which must be unique in our political history. It is that situation which we have met to discuss this afternoon. I believe that this debate will have done some good if, in the light of the evidence that is produced from all quarters of the House, the Government are made to realise the damage—possibly irretrievable damage—done to our economy by the three-day week.
I came into this Chamber, as no doubt many others did, with a pocketful of examples of the anomalies and absurdities of the three-day week. If he were here I would tell the Secretary of State for Employment that when he acted in

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so self-righteous a fashion at the beginning of his speech, saying that the three-day week was introduced for no reasons other than economic reasons, all I can say is that the anomalies are so great that one must conclude that this policy was either rushed through for political rather than economic reasons, or was introduced with sheer incompetence.
I know that many other hon. Members wish to speak. Therefore, I shall concentrate on one point, because I am kinder to the Government than the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, Southwest was. I am going to mention a solution which lies to the Government's hands under their own policy. In doing so I am obliged to forgo giving the details, which have been pouring into me from my constituents, of the anomalies, hardships, threatened bankruptcies, inequalities, muddles and confusions which have been operating under the three-day week.
It seems incredible to be told that this was a planned economic operation brought forward only for the most high-minded of motives. How is it that the Secretary of State this afternoon could not even give an answer to one of the many questions about anomalies? I refer to one which was raised earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer)—the question of the disparity of entitlement to unemployment benefit. That is just one of many examples which have come streaming in to me. The Blackburn Weavers' Association telephoned me, and I was told, "Our members in Blackburn are working on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with two days' entitlement to unemployment benefit. Our members in Accrington and Great Harwood are working on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and are entitled to three days' unemployment benefit. "Those workers are losing £10 per week, on average, from their wage packets. Every pound, therefore, is vital to them. How dare the Government so frivolously push this country compulsorily on to short time without having found a solution to basic questions like that?
It is true, as we all know, that people have responded well. The response of the workers has been marvellous, say the employers. The employers say that the
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CBI is showing ingenuity. The customers are proving very understanding. That is because up till now people have been led to believe that this is an unavoidable emergency. Once the realisation dawns on them that there is a way out which the Government refuse to take, I warn the Government that the mood in this country will be so ugly that it will be uncontainable.
I conclude with one other example which come to the House of Commons on my "hot line", which has been buzzing with information from my constituency during the past few days. A small family firm in Clitheroe telephoned me. This firm employs 50 men. Normally it runs 17 shifts working efficiently every day—three shifts a day and two extra night shifts at the weekend. Those shifts have been reduced to nine. The earnings of the men who were manning the night shifts have dropped from £55 per week to £19£50. Then they hear the Prime Minister telling the New York Times that he intends to carry on the three-day week until the spring rather than yield to the miners' demands.
I tell the House advisedly that the Government cannot get away with this. Very soon the machinery of industry will grind almost to a standstill. The question we must ask this afternoon therefore is whether this emergency is unavoidable. I fully appreciate the Government's dilemma. They think they are cornered, but, as someone who has had to operate a statutory prices and incomes policy, I agree with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West that this is the great disadvantage of a rigid statutory prices and incomes policy. It widens every issue. It turns every deviation from the norm into a cardinal sin. That is what we learned. It escalates confrontation. We were wise. We were learning from constructive experience when we said "This is absurd ; we must de-escalate confrontation and move towards a system of co-operation by consent—the best that one can hope for in an imperfect world."
I say sincerely to the Government that this situation is far too serious for any of us to sleep peacefully at night on a diet of party political points.
But do the Government realise what they have already conceded? They have conceded that the miners are a special

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case. On the one hand, they have been saying, "If anything, stage 3 is too generous. In the light of our economic situation it ought to be less generous". Then, almost in the next breath, the Secretary of State for Employment only yesterday assured the NUM that if it called off the dispute he would sit down and discuss with it what he called "the long-term rôle of coal " with a promise of higher pay. Therefore, he is telling the miners that the country's desperate economic situation means that they will get not less but more pay.
The Government have conceded the miners' de facto case. What they are choking on is the de jure expression of it. In the process the Government are martyring themselves and the country totally unnecessarily because there is a de jure answer within the confines of their own policy.
Whatever fun the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West may have had with us about relativities, the fact is that we are trying to survive in the context of a rigid prices and incomes policy imposed on us by a stubborn Government. I want to be a kind of proxy Houdini helping the Prime Minister to escape. I suggest that it can be done.
The irony is that the Government foresaw this very situation in their own document, "The Programme for Controlling Inflation: The Second Stage", as long ago as January last year. That contains three paragraphs, headed "Subsequent Stage of the Policy", to which I want the House to listen very carefully. If the Government feel that they must find such a legalistic way out, here it is.
"31. The policy set out in the White Paper will operate under the Prices and Pay Code until the autumn."
That is autumn 1973.
"During this stage the Government will undertake full consultation on the policy for the subsequent period, so that the attack on price inflation can be carried further.
33. As an integral part of these consultations, the Government will seek the help of the Pay Board in its advisory capacity on problems of relativities and anomalies both within and between groups of employees. Resolution of these problems must occupy an important place in any policy to deal with inflation in the longer term which is to be effective and seen to be fair."
That was a year ago. The White Paper on stage 2 talked about what the
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Government wanted to happen in stage 3. Indeed, they acted on their own programme. The Government referred these matters to the Pay Board. First and foremost, they referred certain pay anomalies and said that they wanted the board to report by September, particularly dealing with the anomalies created by the standstill. The board did report. Having done so, the Prime Minister was wrong in the comment that he made in reply to my intervention yesterday. I can well understand that even he has got lost in the complex tortuous corridors of his own policy. However, he was saying that it was implemented under stage 2.
Not a bit of it. Sir Frank Figgures, Chairman of the Pay Board, only a few weeks ago, said:
"Our report was published in September and the recommendations we made were embodied by the Government, after consultation, into the Stage 3 Code".
In that Anomalies Report hon. Members will find set out and reprinted at the beginning the terms of the Government's reference. When they make a reference they put it very carefully in language that they mean to have observed. The report sets out the Government's terms of reference, which refer to the work to be done on the Anomalies Report, and go on:
"In addition to the anomalies resulting from the standstill, the processes of pay determination themselves throw up questions of wider pay relativities. Within any system for the determination of pay, groups from time to time feel that they deserve special treatment in order, for example, to improve their relative position within the community or in relation to other parts of the same industry. If a policy for controlling inflation is to be effective and fair, it must have procedures for considering such claims objectively. The Government would therefore welcome a further report by the end of the year"—
this was written in March 1973—
"on other problems of pay relativities which may arise both within and between groups of employees. The Government would intend to pursue further consultations on the basis of that report."
That was part of the Government's vision of the continuing development of a flexible policy on pay and they asked for it in December 1973. At that time none of us foresaw the miners' crisis or the world fuel crisis. The very fact that we did not is all the more reason, some people say, why stage 3 is already out of date. We desperately need some legalistic way of amending it.

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For reasons for which I do not blame either the Government or the Pay Board, the report was not available by the end of December. But it is now half in draft. The evidence has been assembled and the drafting is almost complete. That report will be in the hands of the Secretary of State within a matter of days.
Having acted on the Anomalies Report, are the Government now going to say that they cannot proceed on the Relativities Report? I do not know what is in the report, but according to John Elliott in today's Financial Times—journalists always seem to get to know more than we do—the Pay Board's Relativities Report "could bring peace to the pits" because it would suggest machinery whereby those groups who feel that they have a special case, whom the Pay Board, the Government and the House accept have a special case, can be dealt with within the prices and incomes policy.
We have heard a lot of talk today whether the TUC meant what it said—namely, that if the miners were accepted as a special case other unions would not press similar claims. With respect to everybody engaged in that argument, I humbly suggest that within the confines of a statutory prices and incomes policy that is irrelevant. That is the whole point of having a statutory prices and incomes policy. Sir Frank Figgures, in his speech on 13th December at an associated business programmes conference, said that the Government thought the policy offered a wonderful opportunity of getting more rational relativities. That is the advantage of a prices and incomes policy. The Pay Board is a body that can draw up the criteria that will enable us to identify special cases. What are we spending our money, time and energy on if we are not to get that?
I repeat, the Relativities Report will be in the hands of the Secretary of State within a matter of days. It will, in the words of the Financial Times, show a way to "bring peace to the pits ". In that situation will the Government now tell the country to sweat it out until the spring? If so, this country will know who the guilty men really are.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu): Mr. Green.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. At 4.20 this afternoon I raised a point of order in this House about information. The Lord President of the Council promised to provide information in the Vote Office immediately concerning coal stocks. Yesterday the Lord President said that there was nothing to hide and that the less that was hidden from the public the more the public would realise just how serious the position was. I went to the Vote Office at 5·20 p.m. That information had not then arrived. Through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I ask the Lord President, if he believes what he says, to provide these figures to the House of Commons?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sure that that remark will come to the notice of the Lord President of the Council.
The Minister of Energy (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord President asked me immediately after sitting down to make arrangements with my Department to advance the publication of this schedule of figures as rapidly as possible. I have given the necessary instructions. I have asked my Department to let me know the minute that the papers are in the Vote Office. They were due to be published later tonight, and there are just sheer practical problems in getting them out. But I assure the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) that there is no desire to withhold these figures.
Mr. Spearing: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The information that I have from the Library is that the last official announcement of the figures was on 1st January, which is nine days ago. As I said at 4.20 p.m.—and it was not disputed by the Lord President—I understood from the Library that the figures would be published tomorrow and subsequently on Thursdays but that they would not be published this Thursday because they would be mentioned by Government spokesmen in the course of this debate.
I raised this as a matter of order because I felt it right that this House should have the information before the debate began. We have not had that

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information. The Minister for Energy is asking for it to be expedited. However, I am informed that it was available for hon. Members in time perhaps for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to provide it tonight. May we please have it now?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Without going into the question of how serious it is that the House should have these figures—that is a matter for everyone to decide for himself—I am sure that the Minister will do all that he can. In any event, it is not for me to order him to do anything.
Mr. Benn: With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, this is a matter for the Chair. The Leader of the House assured us that he would make a statement if the House wished to have it. When I rose on behalf of the Opposition to ask that that statement be made, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that in preference to making the statement he would make the figures available immediately in the Vote Office. There are photo-copying machines available which would have allowed every hon. Member to have had the figures between the time that the Lord President made the statement and the moment that my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) raised his point of order. This is a matter of substance——
Mr. F. A. Burden: Further to that point of order——
Mr. Benn: I hope that the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) will allow me to conclude my submission to the Chair. The point is that this is a matter for the House since the Lord President made a statement that Parliament was recalled to debate the situation and the figures have been kept back deliberately until the two-day debate is over.
Mr. Burden: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Everyone present in the Chamber, with the exception perhaps of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) whose memory often fails him, will recall that my right hon. Friend said that he would make the figures available as soon as possible——
Hon. Members: No.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have no doubt that this is a matter of substance. However, it is for the Government——
Mr. Spearing: Further to that point of order——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have ruled already that this is not really a point of order.
Mr. Spearing: Then, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on another point of order. Is it not a convention of this House that before any matter is debated, even on the Adjournment, the subject proposed for debate is backed with sufficient documentation which is customarily available to hon. Members? In any debate, if such documentation is found not to be available, is it not in order for any hon. Member either to move the Adjournment of the House or to move that the debate be suspended by the Chair until it is available?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are already on the Adjournment. We cannot have the Adjournment moved again.
Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I refer to your remark earlier when you said that my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) had not raised a point of order? Apparently you are not aware that earlier in the day one of my right hon. Friends raised exactly the same point with Mr. Speaker and that Mr. Speaker accepted that it was a point of order and called upon the Lord President to make a statement. If it was a point of order originally, and if my hon. Friend the Member for Acton wants to raise a further point to that point of order, with respect it is not correct for you to say that it is not a point of order since Mr. Speaker has already told the House that my right hon. Friend raised a point of order. If any hon. Member wishes to raise a further point to that point of order, I suggest, with respect, that he should have an opportunity to do so.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am quite sure that the failure to have the figures here is not a point of order. It is a matter for the Government. Mr. Green.
5.41 p.m.
Mr. Alan Green: After listening to those exchanges, I find it a little difficult to remember all that the right hon. Member for Blackburn, (Mrs. Castle) said. I hope that she will forgive me if some of it has gone out of my mind. I will do my best to do justice to what she said.
The right hon. Lady began by doubting in very strong terms the necessity for a three-day working week.
Mrs. Castle: Perhaps I might refresh the hon. Gentleman's memory. I said that I did not believe that the emergency was unavoidable since the solution must lie through the miners' dispute.
Mr. Green: Then I misunderstood the right hon. Lady, as did a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends.
In the present state of electricity supply I do not seen how a three-day working week can be avoided. Of course, it is damaging to the lives and prospects of pretty well everyone in the country. However, my personal experience so far is that the necessity for it has been accepted.
I am an industrialist. I do not want to push my own needs in my own industry. However, we have the problem of meeting export targets on time and within the budget set for them. Exports account for 80 per cent. of the total order book of this one company. Obviously, the outlook for us is very bleak. But I repeat that I do not see how in the present state of the electricity supply industry a three-day working week can be avoided.
Mr. George Cunningham: Of course. That is obvious.
Mr. Green: I am obliged to the hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham). But others have not said that. Others have said that we should go flat out until stocks are exhausted.
There is a need for a great deal of ingenuity and co-operation to be applied in order to get the most out of each hour which can be worked. It may be that lessons of continuing value are being learned. In saying that I am under no illusion about the cumulative nature of the difficulties facing us. But meantime, we have to live through this period as best we may with the minimum damage to our relationships here at home and to our marketing capacity overseas.
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I agree with the right hon. Member for Blackburn that there are many anomalies and apparent injustices within our earning arrangements. Every hon. Member must be getting information about them. Those of us who work in industry or close to the trade unions get even more information of that kind.
The DTI, especially in the regions, is working hard to help in these situations, particularly in those affecting not one firm but the generality of concerns. One such area has quickly become apparent. It is among those companies on a three-day week and with a double responsibility—to maintain export deliveries and to keep supply to those of their home customers who are on a five-day week. Here is a genuine difficulty, I quite accept, and I must tell my right hon. Friend that I am not now about to release him from his dilemma by giving him the solution, for I cannot pretend to do that. However, I suggest that this is a genuine and fairly general problem and I hope that it will be looked at. It is a matter of continuing identification of priorities. As supply lines empty, priorities will certainly change.
What I am therefore asking of my right hon. Friends in this difficult situation is flexibility of mind as the situation develops. I venture also to suggest—it is a small suggestion to those outside the House who may bother to read what I say today—that the reporting of individual difficulties to the DTI is better done in these circumstances by Telex than by telephone. That is a small but practical suggestion for trying to identify the difficulties quickly.
It is not for me to guess how long this situation will last, but, obviously, if we were to get full power tomorrow, it would take time to get back to normal while emptying supply lines were replenished. The longer it takes to increase the supply of energy, the more protracted must be the resumption of normal working in the factories, in the distribution system, and, let us not forget it, in the mines themselves. Like any other major undertaking, the mines require a large volume of supply for their safety and for their efficient working, so the mines themselves are caught in this vicious circle, and I hope that that will be understood.

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My personal belief is that the escalation of oil prices should be coming to an end. Unless the developed countries, in separate states of panic, seek huge and costly contracts for their long-term supply, that escalation will stop. I want to reinforce the advice given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Hugh Fraser) yesterday—although he and I may not be in close accord about the matter of coffins. Oil in substantial quantities continues to be discovered, with a considerable and very helpful geographical spread, and it is being found increasingly in parts of the world remote from the present main reserves. Each discoverery has its own influence on world prices.
But there is another feature of this situation that is of the utmost importance: the major existing producers see that they have no interest in beggaring their major customers, and I think that they are increasingly concerned about the consequences of famine prices to the undeveloped countries ; what is belt-tightening for us, means starvation for them.
We are all the poorer in real terms for what has happened and for what is happening. The beginning of wisdom in this matter is surely to understand that. It means, if it means anything, that individual and collective expectations will have to be moderated. If they are moderated—and it does not seem to me to be an impossible "if"—out of this tribulation may actually come some good.
5.50 p.m.
Mr. John Pardoe: I begin with a few questions about the workings of the three-day week itself and especially some constituency questions, which inevitably arise. I should like to know whether there was any kind of contingency plan. After all, this is not the first time that the nation has gone on a three-day week—it happened in 1947. It would not have been provocative to have planned, because a three-day week could have been the result of many different factors, not only industrial action.
To anyone surveying the way in which the three-day week is being administered by the Government it must seem that the planning started at a very late stage and that there was no contingency plan. This afternoon we heard an extraordinary admission
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from the Secretary of State for Employment. He was asked specifically about unemployment benefit for those working the Thursday, Friday and Saturday three-day week. Incredibly, although this matter must have been raised with him on dozens of occasions over the past two or three weeks and although the Department should have known even longer ago that the problem would arise, the right hon. Gentleman said that he could not give the answer this afternoon. Why not? May we have the answer to that specific question this evening? There seems no reason why we should not.
Earlier this week, another hon. Member for Cornwall and I met the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Traders' Associations. Some questions arose at that meeting and have occurred in correspondence that I have had with industrialists in Cornwall. At the meeting there was a general feeling that better communications were needed, and many speakers pleaded the need for more information within the county. There is natural resentment in Cornwall anyway about having to get the information from Bristol, as the Secretary of State will be well aware. However, it would help if there were some people able to answer specific queries at a more local level and with Cornish connections, information and experience.
The National Farmers' Union is extremely concerned about the supply of heating oils for glasshouses and for fuel for the carriage of produce from the county to national markets.
The Government have made a concession to hairdressers and my information is that it is welcome but nothing like enough. There is still the problem that although hairdressers' businesses have been regarded as shops and allowed an extra hour, employees can work only as long as electricity is available, fn other kinds of retail businesses shop workers can work at a much lower level than normal without electricity—by candle light and other means—but once electricity is switched off, there is no way in which a hairdresser can earn money. For that reason, hairdressers, even outside London, face serious problems. I hope that the Government will be able to respond by allowing hairdressers to opt for a three-day week

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rather than five half-days plus extra hours.
What consideration are the Government giving to areas heavily dependent on tourism? Before Christmas, I raised with the Prime Minister the subject of areas which had been widely advertised, but which found that would-be visitors were far too doubtful about the future of oil supplies and the economy generally to respond to the advertising. The trouble is that all that advertising will have to be repeated. The Government should enter into negotiations with the tourist boards about how to help to overcome the problem of this double expenditure.
The general feeling about the three-day week is that there is a certain amount of the Dunkirk spirit, which is natural in the early weeks, but one wonders how long that will last. There is a feeling that there must be a limit to what any group in the economy is paid, to what any industrialist is able to get by reason of his monopoly power—or any trade union group. With some natural exceptions, that view is accepted throughout the country. Nevertheless there is a feeling among industrialists that enough must at some time be enough. The Prime Minister's interview in the New York Times where he talked of going on with the three-day week until the spring makes total nonsense to any industrialist in this country. How many bankruptcies do the Government think there will be by the spring, whenever that season is defined, if this goes on?
Mr. Burden: I should like the hon. Member to clear up certain points. His right hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) this afternoon stated that he thought the present terms to the miners were too high. If that is the case and if the miners refuse to settle on the offer made, what is the alternative but to carry on as we are?
Mr. Pardoe: As usual the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) has it entirely wrong. What my right hon. Friend said, not this afternoon but yesterday afternoon, was that we had voted against stage 3 because we regarded it as generally inflationary. I shall come to the question of the miners as I develop my speech.
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May I read to the Secretary of State an extract from a telegram from a major American company which in the last two years has established a factory in my constituency? The American president of the company sent the telegram which says
"Unable to comprehend limiting this operation to three-day week where power consumption per unit sale is extremely small."
He goes on
"irrational action suggests locating our European base in Britain a mistake."
Surely there must be some exemption for those companies where the consumption of electricity per unit of sale is small and there is a sophisticated method of rationing fuel. This should surely be possible and if the Government had done their forward planning and had provided a contingency plan it would have been possible.
Certain general questions inevitably arise. The first is whether the three-day week is necessary in the present situation. I do not dispute the latest figures from the Government on coal stocks and coal supply. Of course there is a coal shortage and there was intended to be. What else was the miners' dispute intended to create? Mr. Gormley made it clear before the overtime ban that this was his intention and he actually said disruption would follow within a matter of a few weeks. I do not argue on that.
There is, of course, as the Government keep telling us—but not too publicly—an oil shortage, and as a result of these two troubles there is an electricity shortage. I do not wish to hear any more from the Government about coal stocks because I accept what they say on that, but will they tell us when they expect oil supply to the electricity generating industry to rise to 87 per cent. of last year's allocation? I understand that it is now at approximately 75 per cent.
The consequential question which therefore arises is when do the Government expect to have widespread and indiscriminate blackouts for the domestic consumer? Is it next week or the week after? It cannot be much longer if things go on as they are. The Government got into this extraordinary mess because it was inherent in stage 3. I disagree with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, (Mr. Powell) when he said this afternoon this situation is inherent in any incomes

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policy. However, it is inherent in this policy, and we pointed this out when stage 3 was being introduced.
The stage 3 formula was designed to include the miners at all costs and for that reason it was made more inflationary than was necessary for the rest of the country. At the time we told the Government that it was too inflationary for everybody else and that the way to deal with the matter was to tighten up stage 3 for the rest and to have a process for special cases. We said that the Government would not succeed in getting the miners to agree to an offer within that formula. We have been proved right. Stage 3 is vastly inflationary and the miners' dispute has not been settled.
The only thing which can be said for stage 3, even by its supporters, is that it is Government policy. It is on that that they stick. It has no intrinsic merits, it is outdated and it is inflationary. It has failed to civilise the methods by which we settle our pay disputes. Yet it is there, it is the rock upon which the Government must stand. It is a pretty useless rock for which we are to be asked to pay this enormous price.
The Secretary of State challenged opponents of the policy to say what price we would be prepared to pay the miners. He asked whether we would pay any price, and of course we would not. Surely, however, there must be some flexibility in the matter. The stage 3 offer was made on the first day of bargaining and no bargaining therefore took place because the 13 per cent. was laid on the table and it was rejected. Trade union leaders are elected to bargain yet no bargaining was possible for them. It is therefore hardly surprising that we have got into this mess with the three-day week. That followed the rejection as night follows day.
Yesterday's debate took place before the appearance of the "Neddy" report and perhaps there was an air of unreality in some of the speeches about the real nature of the crisis and its importance. We now know that the crisis is as bad sis it sounded and this time the crunch is for real because on top of the roaring inflation, which is as nothing compared to what will happen when the effects of the oil price rise work through the economy, we have the appalling problem
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of the balance of payments. Although that is not an impossible problem to solve, and I have never taken an over-gloomy view about it, there has been no suggestion from the Government in the last week or so as to exactly how they see their way to solving it.
The continuation of the three-day week beyond a week or two will bring unutterable disaster on top of the moderate disaster we have had so far. Therefore, who is to blame? The Government say it is the miners and the miners undoubtedly must share some responsibility for the situation. Of course, we all accept that it would be foolish to deny the importance of having Communists and Marxists on the executives of our big trade unions. Then the question arises, how did they get there? It was not by ballot rigging but by the free play of an extremely democratic union. What do we say of a Government who succeed after three and a half years in persuading decent, moderate Social Democrats—which is what the vast majority of the miners are—to vote for Communists to look after their affairs? That is the state of play we have reached. Some members of the NUM executive clearly do not want a settlement, but the question then arises, do the Government want a settlement? Mr. McGahey has stated that what they want is to bring the Government down and therefore they are engaging in a political battle. It would be foolish to deny that this has been said or to ignore the importance of the philosophy behind those words.
But there is a good deal of politics attached to the Government's position. Before yesterday's debate I was prepared to suspend judgment on whether the Government really wanted a settlement, but it is now difficult to think that they do. They have been offered a whole range of possibilities as to how they could settle, if not exactly within stage 3 at least in a manner in which they could persuade their back benchers that it was, and that is what matters. They have been offered by the Leader of the Opposition, by Mr. Gormley and by the NUM executive the whole possibility of winding and waiting time. I was never very hopeful that this would produce a great deal of money but the Government, together with the Pay Board, seem to have slammed the door completely.

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I shall deal briefly with the suggestion which I put to the Secretary of State for Employment last week. Clearly, one does not make an offer for nothing. I recognise that there is no direct connection between how much is offered to the miners and how much coal comes out of the pits, but it was always possible for the Government to say how much coal would have been mined in 1974, in normal conditions, and then to tell the House that it would be X million tons. The consumer would have been satisfied with that, his interest in the amount of coal produced being that he should get it for more or less the same price as last year. The 13 per cent. increase to the miners could have been for that. But the consumer has a much bigger interest—an interest in increased coal production, for he will have to pay Arab sheikhs the equivalent of a good deal more than 10 dollars a barrel. Even at that rate it means we could afford £20 a ton for coal, so that an extra 2 million tons production in 1974 could have provided the same amount of money as the Government have already offered at the 13 per cent. level.
I realise that it may be difficult to square that with the exact letter of the code, but it could have been a perfectly feasible way out. I put this to the Secretary of State in that way but again he has slammed the door and turned it down out of hand.
The TUC proposal to which my right hon. Friend referred this afternoon in questions to the Prime Minister seems to be extraordinarily reasonable. Can the miners be a special case? The Government say "No", and constantly quote the Wilberforce settlement and their myth of what happened afterwards to prove their point. But the TUC has responded to the question reasonably and has gone as far as any reasonable person could expect.
The question which again arises is: do the Government want a settlement? There have been many other suggestions, but there has been no response by the Government—only a dead bat and total refusal. I do not believe that the Government want a settlement of the dispute. They want an election on this issue. All right, let us stop the sabre rattling and have one. If the Government are not
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going to have an election, they should scrap stage 3 and get on with an entirely new prices and incomes policy, so that we can solve the problem.
No one in the House—no one but a fool—would deny that inflation is now of enormous importance, that it has reached crisis proportions, and that it will be well over 10 per cent. during 1974, but I believe that there has to be some control by the Government over the total amount of money that can be paid out in wages and salaries. I do not accept the analysis of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) that it is impossible to do anything other than by a total squeeze on the money supply and by total deflation. There must be a Government policy for prices and incomes, for any Government are loaded with responsibilities for full employment, raising living standards, the balance of trade, and stable prices. The Government cannot achieve all this unless they are able to exercise some overall control over the total amount which the nation pays itself. The question is, therefore, how do the Government exercise control?
The Liberals believe that Government controls over incomes can be achieved only by a selective tax on those who cause the inflation through excessive wage increases. The Government must not get involved in the day-to-day bargaining between employer and employee and still less should they get into the position, as inevitably they have in stage 3, of seeming to take sides between employer and employee, but they must take a view on the question what we can afford to pay ourselves. The Government, after due consultation with the TUC, CBI and any other relevant interest group, should declare each year a national pay dividend—the amount by which the nation's pay can increase over 12 months without giving rise to intolerable price rises.
I shall not go into detail now about the way in which this can be calculated—[Interruption.] All right. Since I have been challenged, I will——
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has already had 20 minutes.
Mr. Pardoe: I was endeavouring to speed the process along, Mr. Speaker, but I have been interrupted.
The Government should exercise their control by means of a levy on the national

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insurance contributions of those firms which increase their pay above the national pay dividend. This is an inflation tax. The right hon. Gentleman wants to tax everybody and take the money back that way, but taxes of that kind would fall on the just and unjust alike. In our view, it is possible to be selective in this matter and to ensure that the burden of paying for inflation falls on those who cause it. This is by far the best way of enforcing a prices and incomes policy, and it is one which would take the Government out of the detailed bargaining between employer and employee.
6.11 p.m.
Mr. David Crouch: I listened to the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) with great interest. At first, I thought that he would offer us no solution, but then I realised that he proposed to give us a great many solutions to a great many of the problems which face us. I had the impression that he might be reading from some notes prepared for a future Liberal Party manifesto. I do not criticise him for that, because in our debates over these two days it is essential that the contributions made by hon. Members of all parties should be constructive as well as critical, and I thought that the hon. Gentleman had something to say in that vein. His proposed way out of the present impasse can be described by the one word "flexible".
The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) offered something in the same direction, in that she at least opened the door a chink to allow us to see that there might be some way by which the country—not just the Government—could overcome the difficulties into which we are moving at such a pace. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) did more than anyone, perhaps, because he opened the door not just a chink but very wide, though his door, I suggest, was a swing door or revolving door. I should not criticise him too strongly for that, since he has consistently—more consistently than anyone—stuck to his guns, maintaining his view on the question whether a prices and incomes policy is a manageable policy which can be successfully pursued in our present economic situation.
Mr. Powell: In fact, I have stuck to our guns.
Mr. Crouch: I am not surprised that my right hon. Friend should seek to trip me up when I venture to criticise him.
It is my purpose today to report to the House some of the views which have been put to me by my constituents—and by that I do not mean my active Conservative supporters. In my opinion, we are in the midst of a grave crisis, the size and shape of which is not yet appreciated by the British people—trade unionists, workers, and everybody else. We have had but one week and a few days of the three-day week, and already I am filled with gloom at the prospects ahead. If we stopped the three-day week at the end of this week—if Parliament were so successful in its function today as to bring an end to the impasse and an end to the three-day week situation—it would be many weeks before we could recover what we have already lost.
The views put to me were the views of ordinary people who are already suffering. I went to my local Department of Employment office—the labour exchange—to ascertain the effect of the three-day week in increasing unemployment and temporary unemployment in my area of east Kent. The figures are not large because it is not an area of high industrial activity, but I found that they had already risen to double what they were for wholly unemployed, from 500 to 1,000, in the first week of three-day working.
I asked what the average cut-back was in a person's take-home pay and was told that it varied between £5 and £10 a week, the benefits paid to compensate for that depending on the individual's family circumstances. I looked into these figures, too, and saw that it was obvious that at the end of the day the take-home pay of the average worker would be greatly reduced even after payment of the dole for two or three days of the week.
I found an anomaly within a company in my constituency which has two factories, one of them in one area working Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and the other, a few miles away, is working Thursday, Friday and Saturday but is none the less tied to the production of the first. This means that employees, all on the same payroll, have different entitlements,

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some being able to get three days' benefit while others can have only two.
I spoke to the Department of Employment official about this and he told me that he regarded it as an incongruous state of affairs which should be put right. I must say that I share that opinion.
The view of my constituents was that the Government were right to stand firm. I realise that that is a somewhat emotive phrase, but that was the view which they put to me in the half-light of the shops and other places where I spoke to them. In passing, one should add that it is dark at four o'clock ; people have gone home, and there is little or no shopping until half-past five. The sales were on, but there was hardly anyone on the streets. The streets were deserted after half-past four. The tendency has been for one-and-a-half hours of shopping to be lost.
In that gloomy atmosphere, I was told to say—if I had the opportunity to speak in the House—that we must stand firm. Above all, we must protect the ordinary people—trade unionists, housewives, pensioners, shopkeepers or whoever they may be—from the terrifying dangers of runaway inflation, and we must protect our democratic institutions and the Government's right to govern.
I heard the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) debating with the Home Secretary on "Panorama" last Monday. I noted that the right hon. Gentleman rightly conceded that we must retain for the Government the right to govern, and he added. "with consent". I do not disagree with that addition, but I was asked by my constituents to stress that the time had come for Parliament to say that we cannot continue to tolerate the activities of small but powerful groups of people who are able, if they think about it, to take action which can only have the result of holding the country to ransom.
Mr. Stanley Orme: Nearly 300,000 miners are not a small group.
Mr. Crouch: It is small in relation to the total work force.
Mr. Thomas Swain: It is a vital industry.
Mr. Crouch: The hon. Gentleman need not tell me about the mining industry. Neither do I have to be reminded—we have heard about it again and again—of the importance of those who work in the mines today. Apparently, because I used an emotive phrase, I have disturbed the attention of some hon. Members. I am sorry for that, but these phrases are being used to us and I am sure that they must have been put to Members of the Opposition as well.
Mr. William Molloy: The hon. Gentleman was rightly saying that people feel that there is a need for defence against inflation, but is he now trying to say that the increases in the price of land and food, increases in council house rents and in all forms of housing costs, and the general increase in the cost of clothing and of practically everything has been caused by the awful miners?
Mr. Crouch: No, not at all. The House knows that it is not in my character to try to generalise in that way.
I was about to say that my constituents also said that they did not feel that the miners should be clobbered. No one told me that we should clobber the miners. There is a schizophrenia in the public mind at present that we must defend our institutions and our protection against run-away inflation but, at the same time, that the miners have a good case. During the debates on the miners' strike two years ago and again before Christmas on the debates about the present industrial disputes, I said that I felt that the miners were always a special case and that they should always have a special place in our consideration.
I am not seeking a fight with the miners or with anyone else at present. I do not classify myself as a "dove" for having said that. It is not a weak attitude to take. The fact that I do not want to clobber the miners but want to be conciliatory, and the fact that I want to consult, does not mean that. Surely that is really the function of those who represent their constituents in this place. I represent many miners.
The Government have conceded that the miners are an exceptional case. In phase 3, as we know, the Government have already provided this special arrangement to meet the miners' demands, of 13 per cent. plus 3½ per cent. Furthermore, it

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was said in the House yesterday afternoon by right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that the Government are prepared to tell the miners that if they accept that offer now the Government are prepared to meet them immediately to talk about the future.
That is a generous offer. To consider the future before we even have an agreement to the present offer is a remarkable suggestion. Nevertheless, there is a feeling that we must stand absolutely firm against the insistent demand of the miners. The miners are not moving. There is an impasse. There is a feeling—it cannot be denied—that in certain instances there are ulterior motives in some elements of the NUM. This is not imagination. We are told of this by some leaders of the NUM and members of its national executive. I am not seeking reds under every bed, but I tell any of those extreme militants, in the NUM or any other organisation, that they will not obtain any results that they will find satisfactory if they now seek to frighten the British public by any suggestion of weakening our democratic institutions. On that score I am certain that they will not succeed.
Mr. Swain: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Crouch: Yes.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am very anxious to call a great many hon. Members who have been present for most of the debate. If hon. Members will confine their speeches to about 10 minutes and not give way too much, that will help.
Mr. Crouch: I shall not, therefore, give way to the hon. Gentleman but draw my remarks to a close.
Mr. Swain: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Crouch: No, I am taking the instruction of Mr. Speaker, with which the whole House is probably in sympathy.
Mr. Swain: Mr. Speaker has not given the hon. Gentleman an instruction.
Mr. Crouch: The question that the House and the country must consider is not whether we should be paying miners £30, £40, £50 or £70 a week, but how much the nation can afford to pay the miners now, and what we should pay
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them in the future. We must reach a solution to the problem as soon as possible.
I am very glad that the Prime Minister has said that he is prepared to receive a delegation from the TUC to talk about the letter that he received yesterday from the TUC. I am very glad that my right hon. Friend has opened the door to this possible solution and a way out of the present impasse.
I am concerned, however, about the power of the Pay Board in its operations under the prices and incomes policy. It seems as though we have watched almost a takeover by the Pay Board of employers' responsibilities to manage. In the present dispute the Pay Board has advised the NCB that extra winding time would not be allowed under phase 3 because the current arrangements would probably be considered to be adequate. Are they adequate? What is the view of the NCB on that question? Does the NCB feel silenced by the voice of authority of the Pay Board, which is above it and out of its reach? What is the view of the Department of Employment? What about the conciliators in the Department, who have hitherto played such an important part in reaching solutions behind the scenes and without the great glare of publicity? They surely have a view.
I want briefly to touch on the question of the respective positions of management and Government in the sort of disputes between management and labour that arise today. It seems that where a nationalised industry is involved we immediately find Government playing the leading rôle rather than coming in in the background, as has hitherto been the case. It is a great pity that with nationalised industries it seems to be the Government who have to play a leading rôle right at the start. The three-day working week, which may escalate, or turn into—perhaps that is a better phrase—a two-day working week, is a very fateful answer to the awful situation in which we have found ourselves.
I understand the Government's reasons for having had to decide to conserve coal stocks in this way wholly in the national interest, but it is a tragedy that we should be digging in, as it were, when we should be trying to advance. I am talking about

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advancing in regard to industrial relations. Confrontation is the antithesis of what I understand to be good industrial relations. I am concerned about the way in which we shall recover the ground that we are losing economically. Above all, I am very concerned how we shall recover the good will that we must have with trade unionists and dispel the bitterness and distrust which must build up if this situation continues for much longer.
We have to live with trade unions. It is no good saying that we are finding it difficult to live with them and assuming that we shall find another solution. Today they are a national institution and we have to find our way around the problem of living with them. We may have to say today that it is too difficult to live with them and that we are forced inevitably into a slogging match. Why is that so? It is because the unions seem to choose that way. If that is so, it is the Government's duty to find out why this is the inevitable outcome of a dispute in industry.
Why do the unions feel that they must resort to such a slogging match? There is much that should be done in the way of studying what is happening on the shop floor. Much study is necessary, on both sides, to see why moderate trade unionists are feeling that they are being driven into an alliance of absolute loyalty with their union executives, right or wrong. What is it that is drawing the moderates—the good men and the good workers in industry—who are in the majority, into the arms of men whose interests are not moderate and are even evil? These are the answers which we must find.
I shall now conclude my speech. [Interruption.] I have waited for one and a half days to speak in the debate and I have not spoken in the House for over two months. I believe that Parliament has a duty, in these two days, to debate this crisis properly. It was well expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, Southwest, who spoke of debate as an ingredient in the solution to the problem of the great crisis facing our country. We must debate it, as we have, coolly, critically and constructively, not just agreeing with our own side or necessarily disagreeing with the other side.
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I should like to see the Secretary of State for Employment given some cards to play. I felt this afternoon that his hand was empty of cards. I should like him to have a chance to negotiate and to keep on talking. If that meant more power to his elbow, if it gave expression to our feelings and perhaps achieved a reduction in the power and inflexibility of the Pay Board, I should be pleased.
6.30 p.m.
Mr. Denis Howell: I am the living personification of all the questions asked by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch). I am a moderate trade unionist and the president of a moderate trade union that is involved in the coal industry dispute. The Association of Professional and Executive Workers—APEX—has had an overtime ban in the coal industry going back several months. I want to tell the House about the dilemmas that face moderate leaders of trade unions. What advice have the Government Front Bench to give me as president of my union in our dilemma?
The hon. Member for Canterbury put his finger on the problem when he spoke of the Government's right to govern and asked questions about the Pay Board. It seems to moderate trade unionists, faced with rising rents and a fantastic increase in mortgage interest rates, that there is no way out of their dilemma. They are therefore forced to demand increased wages which in other circumstances would be regarded as excessive. That dilemma is attributable to the Government.
The Government have set up a statutory board answerable to no one—the Pay Board. The other horn of the Government's dilemma is that the Pay Board is taking action that is frustrating settlement and aggravating the situation.
My union, with COSA—the Colliery Officials and Staffs Association, a group of the NUM—has national negotiating machinery for dealing with staff salaries. The union submitted a claim for an increase in salaries on 14th August 1973. We have not yet had a reply. No wonder my members are up in arms. The moderates are up in arms because the National Coal Board has not answered this reasonable claim. The NCB said that it must first deal with the miners because my members' claim was related to the miners' claim.

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In mid-October the NCB reached a settlement with the NUM about travelling time from the place of work to the actual pit. My union said that as miners come from mining communities and husbands and sons go down the mines and daughters go into the office it was reasonable that that settlement should apply also to the staff. The NCB refused to apply to the staff the agreement that was reached with the NUM. That created a dispute. It started with an overtime ban—perhaps that is where the miners got their idea from. We have had to say, for example, that our computer staff cannot work, and this has created an enormous amount of disruption within the industry. It was the only way to get round the impasse.
Shortly after, both sides agreed to go to arbitration. As a moderate trade unionist, I believe that arbitration is the civilised way of reaching agreement. In December, after two months, the arbitrators awarded in our favour and said that the deal between the NCB and the NUM should apply also to the staff in the industry. We were then asked by the NCB to remove the overtime ban. We said, "Not likely. We know that you will refer the arbitration award to the Pay Board. We cannot remove the ban until the money is in the pockets of our members." I am sorry to say that I have heard today that the Pay Board has vetoed the arbitration award which we won.
The veto is on the ground that there is, according to the Pay Board, no relativity between wages and conditions of staff in collieries and those of miners who go down the mines. That takes us back to August. The NCB could not answer our initial pay claim because of the question of relativity between miners and staff.
Where am I in that situation? What advice does the Secretary of State give me? We have gone to arbitration and we have won, but the award has been vetoed by the Pay Board on grounds totally opposite to those put forward by the NCB in replying to our original claim. That shows the ludicrous nature of the activities of the Pay Board. We all want to get a settlement and we all want arbitration, but there must be a sensible basis on which our affairs can operate. This is not an imaginary problem. It is not allied to Marxism. It concerns ordinary people who are trying to pay their rents and their
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mortgages and who realise that they cannot. When they agree to go to arbitration they are frustrated.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said that the most important thing is to re-establish the authority of conciliation and arbitration courts in which both sides of industry once had so much confidence. I hope that the Minister, in the spirit in which my union accepted arbitration, will ask the Pay Board not to act in this way. The Pay Board is not answerable to the House for its outrageous decision.
I hope, too, that the Government will take up the TUC initiative, whatever may be included in the small print. The people want conciliation and agreement. All members of the TUC know that what the TUC has said is a fantastic stride forward. The biggest single weakness in the trade union movement is the lack of authority which the TUC has had to relate the claims of one member union to those of another. If the TUC comes forward with the agreement of all its member unions for the first time to give an undertaking about the relationship of one claim—that is, the miners' claim—to other claims, it should be grasped by the Government.
I am glad to read the news about ASLEF, but the Chairman of the Railways Board seems to be as reluctant to accept this offer as were the Government to accept the TUC offer. When ASLEF says, as I understand it has, that it will call off its industrial action in the Southern Region from midnight if the Railways Board will enter into immediate negotiations——
Mr. Leslie Hackfield: ASLEF has not said that.
Mr. Howell: That is what I understand from my reading of the newspaper. If I am wrong, I am sorry, and my hon. Friend can correct it later. That seems to be a sensible interpretation of what has been said.
I come now to a constituency matter which affects thousands of small businesses. I cannot underline too much what my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North said about the plight of thousands of small companies. I spent three days going round such companies in

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Birmingham. Their position is desperate, and some are in great difficulties with the cash flow. Ideas are being canvassed. For example, the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce has appealed to the Government to cancel the collection of VAT. Even that marginal sum of money might be vital to small businesses. I understand that other ideas have been canvassed within industry at high level. For example, if this ridiculous crisis goes on it may be necessary to suspend the bankruptcy laws of the country in order to save many small firms. Let us not forget that small firms employ almost half our working population.
My final illustration is the situation of a firm called Barmatic in my constituency. It employs 40 people and is engaged on manufacturing brass nipples for the conversion programme to North Sea gas, which is vital to the national interest. Production will now be reduced to half, which will obviously seriously affect the conversion programme.
The firm is also engaged in providing parts for manufacturers of mining equipment. Only yesterday it received a letter from a customer saying, "We are dissatisfied with your output of essential parts for the manufacture of mining machinery." The firm can do nothing about it, because it is on a three-day working week. Yet another customer, which has an American parent company, has told Barmatic, "If you cannot give us the production we want we regret that our order will be cancelled and we shall have to buy the parts in America, even at double the price."
In this case the Government's action frustrates not only the gas conversion programme and the manufacture of mining machinery ; it also helps to worsen the balance of payments. This is only one illustration of the dichotomy of frustration facing small businesses. I hope that the Government will show the same sense of conciliation and urgency that the trade union movement is anxious to show. My own union is as anxious to show that sense as is the rest of the trade union movement, but it is being frustrated because of the rigidity of the Government's attitude.
6.43 p.m.
Mr. A. E. Cooper: The hon. Member for Birmingham, Small
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Heath (Mr. Denis Howell) has put forward a case for his own union and he will not expect me to deal with that, but will accept that I mean no discourtesy.
On the question of moderates in the trade unions, the hon. Gentleman got the situation wrong when he dealt with our normal thinking on the matter. In every trade union, big or small, there is a very strong Marxist and Communist element. What happens in a lot of trade unions is that at branch meetings attendances are relatively small. The activists are the Communists, who generally manage to outvote the moderates and in this way get themselves into positions of power.
I have the greatest admiration for the miners. They are very powerful, patriotic men and have proved this over many years. No one is going to tell me that these honest men deliberately want Communists in powerful positions in their unions, but they have got them. How did they get them? They did not vote for them.
Mr. Swain: Ninety-two per cent. voted.
Mr. Cooper: I do not believe it.
Mr. Molloy: rose——
Mr. Cooper: I am not going to give way to the hon. Member, who has, of course, coalfields in Ealing.
Mr. Molloy: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I had not said a word to the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Coper), but he made a direct and, in the context of his interest in Israel and other things, which was an obscene remark to me about my interest in British workmen in my constituency.
Mr. Speaker: I saw nothing obscene in the remark.
Mr. Cooper: We are talking about the three-day week as though everyone was on it. We are not all on a three-day week. Some people, particularly in large engineering firms, have great difficulty in working outside the three-day week, but many smaller industries—and we should congratulate both managements and unions in them—are showing considerable inventiveness and ingenuity in managing to keep their factories going
Mr. Molloy: Is the hon. Gentleman talking about Britain?
Mr. Cooper: I am talking about Britain. The speech which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made yesterday was statesmanlike, and was delivered in the most difficult circumstances. What I regretted was that the Leader of the Opposition could not rise to the occasion. Instead, he made petty party political points which were quite unnecessary in this very serious situation.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) in his, I have spent a lot of time in my constituency this last week or so. It is an astonishing fact—and hon. Members opposite would do well to recognise it—that there is a bitterness against the miners and the railwaymen such as I have never known before. Ordinary people are saying, "Do not give way. We cannot give way to the sort of blackmail we are suffering".
Mr. Swain: What is the hon. Gentleman's rate of absenteeism from here?
Mr. Cooper: Very low. I think that the executive of the National Union of Mineworkers and the ASLEF executive will not break this country. Hitler could not do it, and I am damned sure that these two bodies will not do it, either.
Mr. Swain: They are not trying to.
Mr. Cooper: The hon. Gentleman says that they are not trying to. He should read the speeches of Mr. McGahey, Mr. Cargill and one or two others, who first want to see the Government broken and then the society in which we live crushed. That is the objective of the Communist Party in this country. We delude ourselves if we think that the Communist Party is concerned simply with getting an extra £2 or £3 a week for workers. It is trying to destroy existing society, and I am sure that as soon as the ordinary miners recognise that fact we shall see some changes at the top level of the union. Selfishness, arrogance and greed seem to be the necessary ingredients to become a top-level official in the the NUM and ASLEF. What sort of people are the leaders of these unions?
Mr. Swain: They are English.
Mr. Cooper: They are taking this action to put millions of fellow workers out of work, and they do not feel the slightest shame in doing it. My constituents are, perhaps, suffering worse than
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many people because the diesel railway runs through the southern part of the town to Southend. No trains are running through there at all, but my constituents get to work. They know their duties and obligations to their families, and they get to work.
I have the unemployment figures for Redbridge as a whole. They do not make good reading, but they are a lot better than those for many other places, because people there have made provision to get to work. Shops are making provision to keep going and are doing a splendid job. I think that the London travelling public owe a great debt to the tube workers and the bus drivers in this great city of ours who have kept things flowing pretty well.
We must recognise and understand that the real menace facing this country——
Mr. Swain: Is the Prime Minister.
Mr. Cooper:—is the Communist Party, and that is so not only here but in other countries. We may, as Parliament and people, have to take some steps to proscribe the party—which I personally would not like to see—or to exclude Communists from membership of trade union executives. I believe that the Electrical Trades Union at one time barred Communists from being members of its executive. It may be that we shall have to try to persuade other unions to take similar action.
Mr. George Cunningham: The hon. Gentleman is so persuasive.
Mr. Cooper: We have a so-called offer from the TUC which Labour Members think is wonderful. If they believe that they will believe anything. The only powers which the TUC has are those that are given to it by individual unions. The right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) knows that perfectly well. With the best will in the world, Mr. Murray can make such an offer but he knows that he has no power to enforce it. Labour Members know that if the miners get more money and are regarded as a special case Mr. Scanlon will be rushing to get more money. Of course he will. It is in the nature of the man to do such a thing.
Mr. McGuire: The hon. Gentleman must not dodge the issue.
Mr. Cooper: I am not dodging anything. Labour Members are making it difficult for me to make my speech.
Mr. Cunningham: It is a brilliant speech, but speed it up.
Mr. Cooper: We must regard the Communist menace with greater seriousness.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am trying to get as many hon. Members called as possible. These interventions are lengthening proceedings.
Mr. Cooper: Labour Members might not recognise that there is such a thing as a Communist menace in Britain. We can regard some of the current leaders of the Communist Party, based on their own utterances and not the expressed opinions of others, as traitors.
Mr. Swain: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is the word "traitor" a parliamentary word to use in any context within the House?
Mr. Speaker: It would be unparliamentary to apply the word to an hon. Member. It is not out of order to apply it to people outside the House.
Mr. Cooper: I have been asked by my constituents to ask one or two questions. The first is about North Sea oil. Having regard to the measures which are now being taken, when do we expect to be on stream? It would be a wonderful acquisition if we could have oil from the North Sea two years before the expected date. Second, when do we expect to be able to increase the volume of our atomic power? Are we taking special steps to speed up that process? The House must recognise that we must never again be in a position to be blackmailed as we have been over the past few weeks and months.
Finally, I refer to a minor matter that has been urged upon me in correspondence, namely, the closure of television services at 10.30 p.m. There are many people who work late at night during the week and have little relaxation. Is it possible to relax the ban so that television broadcasts may continue until midnight on a Saturday? Is such a concession possible?
6.54 p.m.
Mr. Giles Radice: I shall not take up the points made by the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Cooper), except to say that he does not appear to have a great knowledge of trade unionism. The hon. Gentleman seems to suffer from one or two deep fixations. The debate is meant to be about the three-day week. Obviously it is impossible to discuss the matter in isolation. We must consider it against the background of the general economic situation, the energy crisis and the miners' dispute.
It is common ground between both sides of the House and between management and trade unions that the three-day week is desperately harmful. It is inevitable that there will be a drastic cut in living standards. It is inevitable that there will be many anomalies, and unfairness between different industries. It is true that various categories do not always fit industrial realities. That is a problem not just for the large industries but, as many hon. Members have said, for the smaller industries, including the hairdressers, whose hours the Government have now marginally increased.
It is more serious in that the longer the three-day working week continues the greater will be the damage to the economy in terms of price increases and the balance of payments. Goodness knows, the Government's record on both those issues is bad enough. Above all, it is certain that any prospect of growth will disappear into the distant future. The Government have been less than candid about the seriousness of the position. Even without the three-day week we would be in a difficult situation.
The recent rise in prices has been the fastest since the war. Our balance of payments situation is devastatingly weak. It is now at its worst since the war. The Government either do not understand or they have not told the House that because of the rise in oil prices we face potentially the worst recession since the war. The increase in oil prices is equivalent to a £2,000 million increase in taxation. That is a massive deflationary dose to be swallowed by any economy, and particularly an economy as weakened as ours.

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For all those reasons it is essential that we return immediately to full-time work. That means that the mining dispute must be solved now. The point must be made that it appears from everything that we have heard that the miners are solidly behind their leaders. That is the position in my constituency. That is significant because the Durham miners are well known for their levelheaded approach. The Government must realise that the miners are solid. Unless the Government's attitude changes towards the dispute it is likely to continue, with devastating results for the country.
It is our contention that the Government's policies must change, for two main reasons. The first reason is that the cost to the country of the three day week is that it has gravely weakened our economic position. We cannot afford any more obstinancy. The Government must abandon confrontation and adopt conciliation. Secondly, the Government's policy must change because, as we have been told so often during the debate, the miners are a special case.
On Tuesday I went down a mine to refresh my memory of the conditions that prevail. As a non-miner I went to see for myself die conditions in which miners have to work. As in most pits in Northwest Durham, the conditions were very bad. I do not pretend that the pit which I visited is typical of some of today's modern pits. However, it is always exhausting to work underground in any pit. It is unhealthy and it is often dangerous.
Mr. Molloy: It is always frightening.
Mr. Radice: The miners are special, and they need to be rewarded accordingly. There is a further over-riding reason for their being a special case. It is because the country now needs coal more desperately than at any other time since the war. The opportunity for the coal industry is understood well by both sides of the industry. I have been told by both sides during the past few weeks that unless the industry is prepared to pay higher wages it will be increasingly difficult to get miners.
I visited Poland last summer. There the miners are paid as much as company directors. I am not advocating that that should happen here overnight. However,
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we need to pay the miners much higher wages if we are to have a flourishing coal industry. The Government's argument is that if the miners are allowed anything more than the letter of stage three the floodgates will open, through which all other workers will go.
Of course, there is a problem, as much for the Government as for the unions. I speak as one who was research officer of a major union and worked under the incomes policies of successive Governments. Despite that cruel experience, I believe that any Government must have an incomes side to their anti-inflation policy. However, my firm conclusion is that no policy has the remotest chance of success in the long term unless it is seen against the background of a much fairer society than we have now.
The Government's problem is that over the last three years they have created some formidable obstacles to this kind of acceptability. Under this Government it is the better-off who have done well and the workers and their families who have borne the burden of any sacrifice. Conservative Budgets have been characterised by their concern for the wealthy.
Government policies—in particular the Housing Finance Act—have fallen on the least well-off, and the Government have refused to make any attempt to subsidise food prices, which of course have hit the less well-off much more severely than the better-off. Last, the irrelevant, divisive and harmful Industrial Relations Act has directly embittered relations with the unions, as all of us who knew anything about it told the Government at the time.
Despite all this, the TUC yesterday made a major conciliatory gesture to the Government, which, despite the Government's fumbling, the Prime Minister has now agreed to discusss. I hope that the Government realise the seriousness and exceptional nature of the TUC's commitment. However, the Government must understand that alienation is widespread among unionists and that only if they recognise this will there be any chance of success. The Government, and particularly the Prime Minister, must learn to listen to other people. They must have the imagination to understand other people's points of view.
In this debate, which I hope he will read tomorrow in HANSARD, the Prime

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Minister has been given many suggestions for solving the mining dispute. I hope that he will adopt one or two. But looking ahead, we do not need just to settle the miners' dispute, although that is the first priority: we need a broader settlement, a better relationship between this Government and the trade unions. If the Government told the TUC that they were prepared to subsidise some foods, put the Housing Finance Act in cold storage, repeal the Industrial Relations Act and introduce a wealth tax as a symbol of their desire for national unity, they would get a positive response. If Conservative Members said that this would mean abandoning all Conservative policies, I would simply point out that nothing else would create, or recreate, the basics of social consensus on which the running of our society depends.
I hope that Conservative Members also realise that the election slogan coined by the Conservative Central Office—"Who runs the country?"—is very dangerous and divisive. Heaven knows, we cannot afford any more division. It will also rebound on those who release it. The idea that trade unions have any wish to run the country or overturn the constitution is of course absurd, as anyone knows who has had anything to do with them. This would be increasingly realised during an election campaign. In fact, the British people would want to know how the Government they elected in 1970 are now apparently so convinced of the bankruptcy of their policies that they do not know who runs the country. I suspect that the British people would draw the appropriate conclusion.
The job of Government is to solve problems, not to sit in bunkers or to run away. The Government must abandon confrontation once and for all and adopt a new policy, a new attitude, of co-operation and conciliation. That is what this country wants ; it provides the only possible framework within which it will be possible to solve our country's difficult economic problems.
7.5 p.m.
Miss Joan Hall: I was particularly interested when the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Radice) said that he felt that the miners should be paid a much higher wage. What I am interested lo know is how much that would be and
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how much it would cost the industry. He also mentioned that the Prime Minister had said that the 16 per cent. offer would cost £44 million. Our constituents want to know how much that would raise the price of coal and coal products that they buy——
Mr. Swain: By 2p a ton.
Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: This time.
Miss Hall: That figure of 2p a ton is one that I have heard, but I have heard much higher ones. I was interested to note that, during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch), the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Swain) said, in a derogatory tone, "Talk." I do not want to fight ; I far prefer to talk. I am reminded of the saying, "Jaw-jaw is better than war-war." I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) has gone. I am always interested in his arguments, particularly about bargaining. No doubt he will repeat them and one will be able to follow him on another occasion.
Some important points have already been mentioned, but, to avoid repetition, I want to deal with some new ones. While the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) was speaking today, I received a telegram from a constituent raising a point that has been raised with me before. I telephoned him and he told me that the telegram had been put together by a number of people who felt that the point was important. It has been mentioned before but it bears repetition. I hope that the Minister will answer it specifically.
The telegram says:
"Suggest Mr. Heath tells the Trades Union Council that he will negotiate with the miners if all their member unions"—
that is, all the TUC member unions—
"will guarantee not to ask for more than phase 3 permits. If they refuse"—
that is, if the TUC refuses to give that guarantee—
"the country will know that continued inflation is definitely the alternative. If they agree then he"—
the Prime Minister—
"has succeeded in putting the brake on inflation."

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I should like an answer to that question. My hon. Friends on the Front Bench are welcome to have this telegram. This telegram has come from some of my constituents. They are more important than some of the silly things that hon. Members opposite have been saying.
My other two points concern petrol—one generally and the other in a particular constituency context. First, I was interested in the Lord President's reference yesterday to
"the splendid way in which motorists have been keeping to the 50 mph speed limit."—[OFFICIAL RLPORT, 9th January, 1974; Vol. cS67, c. 144.]
My experience is that it has not been well observed on motorways. Driving to my constituency on the day the House rose—up the Ml virtually to Leeds, turning off on to the M62 and then taking the M606 to Bradford—and when I came back yesterday, I kept careful count of the vehicles which passed me.
I should say that in normal circumstances I find it difficult to keep to the 70 mph limit.
I refer to something said by the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) who quoted John F. Kennedy:
"It is not what my country can do for me but what I can do for my country."
In the present situation that is important. I want to give some figures because it seems that the situation with regard to the 50 mph limit is not improving. When I went to my constituency on 21st December the number of cars on the road was approximately the same as the number when I came back yesterday. On the way there I was overtaken by 117 cars. Coming down yesterday the number of cars that overtook me was 337.
Mr. Swain: All Tories.
Miss Hall: Some of them were typical Socialists driving rather luxurious cars. I was also overtaken by 14 lorries and 17 vans. Anyone who has experienced some of these large lorries going past will know what this means.
Mr. Swain: Be serious.
Miss Hall: I am being serious on this and it is time that the hon. Gentleman considered his country and not his great mouth.
Mr. Swain rose——
Miss Hall: No. I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman. Everyone agrees that travelling at 50 mph saves petrol. That is the object of the exercise. But people seem to be forgetting that this limit is still in operation. Driving on a motorway requires a lot of self-control. Is it still necessary for this 50 mph limit to be observed? If so, will the Government emphasise this in newspapers, on television and radio because it is being forgotten by an increasing number of motorists.
Mr. Stephen Hastings: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We on this side are just as interested in the speech of my hon. Friend as in any other that has been made today. She is making a serious point. May I ask you to prevail on hon. Members opposite to accord her the same courtesy which they have accorded to others?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): I am obliged to the hon. Member. I think perhaps there is rather more noise than there ought to be. The hon. Lady ought to be given a careful hearing and I hope that we shall all do so with a clear conscience.
Miss Hall: My next point concerns my constituency and the new Post Office rule whereby deliveries and collections to and from rural post offices are being reduced to save an estimated 10 per cent. of Post Office petrol consumption. In the rural Pennine areas many of the villages which are termed rural are in fact industrial villages. This was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. It started up in the hills and the wool was brought down to the mouths of the rivers.
In my constituency there is a village called Oxenhope. It is termed a rural area by the Post Office but it has over 40 firms in it. The people of the village work in the factories there and others come in from outside. A number of firms are small. The largest factory employs 120 people. Each afternoon the mail is taken to the post office. There are about four or five bags of mail and parcels a day being taken down to Keighley. Under present regulations there cannot be a collection after mid-day. This means that a number of my small but very important firms are severely restricted. Although this is termed a rural area, it is not. The Post Office is being to rigid in its definition

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of rural areas. As in a good deal of life, it is not all black and white. There is a lot of grey in the middle. I ask the Minister to get the Post Office to be more flexible in its rulings.
What is happening now is that instead of one Post Office van coming from Keighley on a 12-mile run, a number of cars are going to Keighley and back again, thus using more petrol than would one Post Office van. The object of the exercise is to save petrol nationally and not just petrol used by the Post Office. I ask my right hon. Friends to look at these points.
7.15 p.m.
Mr. Stanley Orme: The hon. Member for Keighley (Miss Joan Hall) should appreciate that we were interested in her constituency points. We all have many such points arising from the present crisis with which we could deal ad infinitum. What we have to address ourselves to is the question how to get off this roundabout, which is creating the sort of problems about which the hon. Lady spoke.
The anomalies that have been created through the three-day week are legion. Hon. Members speak euphemistically about the ingenuity of workpeople and employers in getting round the three-day week problem. Such tales are legendary. We know that, and we know that whereas many employers have not co-operated with trade unions during phases 1, 2 and 3, they are co-operating in the interests of keeping their business going. Some of the arrangements reached are in the best traditions of British ingenuity.
We know that the three-day week is disastrous, and impinges severely on certain firms. I have some in my constituency. Saturday working, in particular, involves problems for women and children. Nevertheless, many have overcome the difficulties on a temporary basis. Serious as the three-day week is now, and disruptive as it has been in many parts of industry, it is nothing compared to what will happen unless this dispute is resolved.
I draw particular attention to the crucial issue of coking coal for the steel industry. I was discussing the arrangements made for the three-day week with employers and trade unionists in the
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engineering industry in the Greater Manchester area this weekend. What was worrying them was not the immediate interim arrangements which have been concluded but the fact that the supply of steel to some key industries is beginning to dry up. We are short of coking coal at the moment, leaving aside the question of moving stocks from the pits to the steel plants. I wonder what will happen if the lockout—that is what it is—on British Railways, carried out by the chairman, develops in such a way that it is impossible to move this coal, not only to the power stations but to the steel plants.
If that happens we shall be not on a three-day week but on a one- or two-day week in many key industries—not all, but certainly those which depend upon steel. It will not be just employment and wages which will be affected but our exports and everything that goes with that.
I want to address myself to the central issue of the industrial dispute, particularly in the mining industry. If there is one thing that we have learned in the last two days it is that we shall not be able to negotiate a settlement for the mining industry across the Floor of the House. I am a trade unionist, and have been all my life. I think I know a little about the industry in which I worked since I was a boy of 14. Matters such as winding time are peculiar to the industry. However ingenious we may be m this House in suggesting how we may resolve the problem, it can be resolved only by direct and free negotiations between the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) put his finger firmly on the answer to this question.
The coal board and the union understand the issues and the problems involved. When intelligent and skilled people on the employers' and the union sides approach the Pay Board and receive in reply a letter giving the Pay Board's interpretation which neither side can understand, it shows how ludicrous the situation is. It also proves the fallacy of a statutory incomes policy. Here I agree with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, although I certainly disagree with his economic conclusions.

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I think we have all learned a lesson. I agree that it is attractive to talk about creating an incomes policy by having what appears to be a nice liberal policy with a scale, everybody being put into a pigeon hole, and resolving the matter in a nice tidy way. But industry is not a nice, tidy set-up. In fact, we live and work under a basic market economy, where many factors come into play. This question of relativity takes into account not only the dirty, dangerous job that the miners do but the productivity and the profitability of the industry. It takes into account the social consequences of the industry in our society.
I remember how eloquent the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry used to be in opposition to an incomes policy, but today he supports such a policy. He is supporting a policy which has brought the country to a three-day week—a policy which he is proudly administering on behalf of the Government. I have been trying to find some of those posters which said, "Life is better under the Conservatives" but I have had no success. I think the Tories must have burned them all.
We have got to return to free collective bargaining, particularly in connection with the mining industry. We might as well face the fact that nobody is going to beat the miners. They hold all the cards. They are working five days a week. Many miners are working longer hours than those people who criticise the miners. Many of those people are on a 35-hour week, whereas the miners are already doing 40 hours, which is normal working. The miners have all the cards. They have the economic strength and the ability to reach a negotiated settlement. If they were to be absolutely irresponsible they could ask for astronomical amounts, such as are obtained by certain people who are being paid privately in the mining industry to get the coal out.
We all know that the miners would have resolved this matter for quite a smallish sum in comparison with what people have been talking about. The miners have not been allowed to negotiate because the Government have been tied to this idiotic phase 3 and their counter-inflation policy. We know that phase 3 is being broken all over the place. The electrical powers workers got what they asked for because they were deemed not to be strictly within the terms of phase 3.
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We know that the agreement was a generous and deserved agreement, and the electrical power workers got it. The Glasgow fire workers reached an agreement with Glasgow Corporation, and I do not believe that that agreement has yet been submitted to the Pay Board. I should like to know why it has not been submitted and, if it is submitted, whether the board will reject it as it rejected the claim by APEX. If the Pay Board were to reject it and ask for the money back from the Glasgow firemen, would they get it, and would another fire engine go out in Glasgow?
These problems are created by a statutory incomes policy. In the context of the present policy, the TUC has leaned over backwards in an unprecedented manner to try to get the mining dispute settled, not to get the Government down but to get the people back to work and to stop the disastrous trend to which I have referred and the conditions which could be created by a steel shortage.
The Prime Minister this afternoon asked whether the rest of industry would accept phase 3. Everybody knows that the trade unions are opposed to phase 3. The Prime Minister will have to throw that out of the window and start again if he wants a settlement. The trade unions have said that they would not use a settlement with the miners as an argument in any further negotiations. We have on record the words of Mr. Scanlon, the President of the Amalgamated Engineering Workers' Union, who, referring to the TUC's proposal that the Government should make a settlement with the miners' said that his union's claim had been in for some time. He said, "Whatever happens to the miners' claim, we will not use that as a lever for our own." He said that this afternoon. It does not mean that the engineers are going to settle within phase 3. They are not called upon to settle within the terms of phase 3. We want a return to free collective bargaining, and if the miners' settlement is allowed to work its way through rapidly the unions will not use that as a stalking horse for the claims that they put in. They will allow their claim to be judged on their merits. Nothing could be fairer than that.
We are aware of the contempt of the Government, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the trade union

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movement. There have been contradictory statements from the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Employment. I believe that the party opposite are in disarray on this issue. Its members come back from their constituencies telling us that people want to see the miners and the trade unions defeated. I have talked to many of my constituents, and in almost every case—I admit not in every case—people have told me that the Government ought to settle with the miners, that the miners have a justifiable case, and that if people have to pay through the nose for oil as they are having to do, surely they should be prepared to pay our own workers who produce our indigenous fuel.
This debate has been useful. I hope it has done some good with the Government. I hope that in tonight's discussions the Prime Minister v/ill listen, for a change. I hope he will open his ears and listen to what is said to him and to the Government.
There has been talk of moderates, militants, and so on, but the NUM executive this morning was unanimous in its decision to maintain the overtime ban and not to meet again for another month.
The Government are directly responsible for this situation. They have taken on the responsibility for all wage negotiations. That is what happens with a statutory incomes policy. It finishes here. We have ideas thrown about across the Floor of the House, but they do not help to resolve the dispute. In some cases they widen the difficulties.
This country is facing a serious situation, and workers are aware of it. I suggest, in no glib manner, that at the beginning of this dispute people were confused and apportioned blame partly to the miners, partly to the trade unions, and partly to the Government. If the situation continues for another two or three weeks, the steel shortage increases, and the three-day week develops into a two-day week, the anger of the British people will be firmly directed against the Government and all that they stand for.
We have heard the argument that some people are ungovernable. We live in a democratic society. People will allow themselves to be governed in a democracy only when they are prepared to
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accept that what is being done is fair. People do not expect to get all that they ask for, but they want justice.
If the dispute is allowed to go on—I believe that the situation is deteriorating—we shall have confrontation and we shall be forced into a divisive industrial and political situation. I warn the House that the British people, who are being extremely patient and tolerant at the moment, will turn very nasty if this situation continues. That will not be good for Britain or for democracy, but I assure the House that the British trade union movement and Labour Party will not run away from such a situation.
7.33 p.m.
Mr. F. A. Burden: There has been a lot of angry talk. We have been told on many occasions of the anger of the miners, of the ASLEF workers, and of hon. Members opposite about this dispute. But all those people are receiving full pay. I believe that the anger should come from people who are on a three-day week, drawing three days' pay. and travelling to and from work in intolerable conditions. They are the people who should be angry at this time.
One of the most angry men on the benches opposite is the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn). I do not think that anyone in this House or in the country, as a result of what we have seen and heard on television and read in the newspapers, would disagree with the fact that the Communist Party and its followers are very strong on the NUM executive and are using their influence and power to maintain industrial action to deny this country the vital supplies of coal that it needs, and that those on the ASLEF executive are using their influence to slow down the railways. Whatever may happen about oil, there is no doubt that the present situation would not have arisen had it not been for industrial action in the mines.
Much blame has been levelled at my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, but does anyone in this House or in the country disagree with these words:
" … so far, the damage has been far less than was hoped by some of those who saw in the strike a means of crippling the economy and securing a reversal of essential Government policies.
Secondly, we have made it clear that, while we have done everything in our power to secure a satisfactory and honourable settlement, if the

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strike continues the Government must react to it with every measure necessary to protect the interests of the nation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th June 1966; Vol. 730, c. 41.]
Surely hon. Gentlemen opposite will not quarrel with a single, solitary word of that statement. If so, I must remind them that they were not the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister but those of the Leader of the Opposition, the then Prime Minister, during the seamen's strike in 1966. Surely that indicates the problems then confronting the right hon. Gentleman.
On 28th June he added:
"The House will be aware that the Communist Party, unlike the major political parties, has at its disposal an efficient and disciplined industrial apparatus controlled from Communist Party headquarters. No major strike occurs anywhere in this country in any sector of industry in which that apparatus fails to concern itself. In special cases it has been seen at work, for example, in the Electrical Trades Union, where it made a successful take-over bid if not for the share capital at any rate for the management of the union, lasting for some years. No other political party is organised on these lines."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th June 1966; Vol. 730, c. 1613.]
Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite talk about confrontation. The Labour Government were talking about and engaging in confrontation with the Communists in the unions. There can be no confrontation unless two people are parties to it. There can be no conciliation unless both parties agree to it.
The Electrical Trades Union purged itself of Communist domination. As a result of experience, Frank Chapple, the present general secretary, had the authority and courage on Sunday, 23rd December 1973, to write in the Sunday Express. Part of what he wrote is worth repeating to this House and the country:
"I believe that there is a group of men whose purpose is not pay settlement—any kind of settlement—for trades unionists. It is to topple the Government, and not just the Tory Government, but the whole democratic system."
He further stated that a spate of pay deals, coming on a refusal by the TUC to give an official assurance that if stage 3 was broken for the miners it would not be followed by massive demands from other unions,
"would mean inflation on a scale we have never known before. It would destroy the value of even the biggest pay settlements."
Does anyone doubt that? What would be the plight of those who could not
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defend themselves—old-age pensioners and people in the lower income groups? They would suffer most.
Above all, Frank Chapple, a fortnight ago, was doing no more than reiterate exactly what the Leader of the Opposition, then Prime Minister, said in 1966, which was followed absolutely and agreed by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. It would be more honest if, in the interests of the nation, and certainly in the long-term interests of the party that he leads, the right hon. Gentleman had the integrity and the courage to condemn the subversive elements in our national life as he so roundly did in 1966.
Mr. Denis Howell Mr. Denis Howell indicated dissent.
Mr. Burden: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but there has been a complete change-around in his attitude today. The devious attitude of the Leader of the Opposition today is discreditable in view of what he stated about Communist domination of the unions in 1966. There has been no change in their intention.
Mr. Howell rose——
Mr. Burden: Those men are still Communists. If it were the aim of the Communists in 1966, which he so roundly blamed then, why should their aim be any different today? If the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition is devious and discreditable on this——
Mr. Prentice: Will the hon. Gentleman at least promise to read the speech yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition? Clearly he did not listen to it. Will the hon. Gentleman also study carefully the analysis given by my right hon. Friend of the ways in which the policies of this Government are encouraging extremism and Communism in the unions and discouraging the moderates?
Mr. Burden: I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman cannot wriggle out of that one. If the Communist element in the unions was so damaging in 1966 that the then Prime Minister said that the aim of Communists was to force the Government to reverse their policy and to bring down the Government, there is no change in their attitude today. It is a question of Government or Communism. The right hon. Gentleman cannot wriggle out of it.

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If the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition was discreditable, I believe that that of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East is even worse. During the 1960s he tried to establish himself as the whiz-kid of the Government. I am afraid that there was very little whiz about his activities. However there was an awful lot of kid, and he still tries to indulge in it today. I believe that he sees himself not merely as Leader of the Opposition but as a future Prime Minister. He is such a careerist that he will do everything, no matter how irresponsible, to try to attain that aim. In my view the right hon. Gentleman has neither loyalty to his party, loyalty to his Leader nor loyalty to the country if it serves his personal interest not to have those loyalties.
The right hon. Gentleman has had an awful lot to say recently. He has been campaigning——
Mr. Ray Carter: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Earlier in this debate an hon. Member referred to someone outside this Chamber as being traitorous. The expression was questioned on a point of order. Mr. Speaker said that it was not out of order but that if it had been directed towards another right hon. or hon. Member it would have been contempt. Perhaps you would care to consider what the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) has just said and rule upon it.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have been listening very carefully to what the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) has been saying. Curiously enough, the word referred to by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Carter) crossed my mind. But of course it was not used in this context. I do not think that the hon. Member for Gillingham has transgressed the rules of order in what he has said. However, in all our debates it is as well to keep personalities, if not guarded completely, at any rate in some form of restraint. Hon. Members should be a little careful about how they talk about each other, no matter what their feelings may be.
Mr. Denis Howell: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
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Although of course I accept your ruling, I am sure that you will agree that it is the custom of the House for an hon. Member intending to make a personal attack upon another hon. Member to give that hon. Member notice of his intention before the debate commences. May we inquire whether the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) has done my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) the courtesy of telling him that this attack was to be made?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Denis Howell) will appreciate that perhaps the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) realised that some sort of attack was likely to be made upon him. I do not think that this is quite of the nature which would require a personal notice to be given.
Mr. Burden: Of course I did not advise the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East. However, as he is winding up today's debate, I should have expected him to be here during the debate. He has been missing most of the time.
The fact is that the right hon. Gentleman has been projecting himself as the champion of the workers and demanding that the wildest claims of the miners and others should be supported and met without care of the consequences. But these are the same workers of whom the right hon. Gentleman admitted in this House on 2nd August 1971 that he had told Upper Clyde Shipbuilders to slim their labour force by several thousands of men. In other words, he told UCS to sack several thousand workers. I challenged the right hon. Gentleman with this on several occasions in this House. It is reported in HANSARD and cannot be denied. It is sheer hypocrisy for the right hon. Gentleman now to set himself up as the champion of the workers who wants to ensure that everyone keeps his job.
The right hon. Gentleman did not show much love or concern for the miners during the six years in which he was a Minister. In that time 200,000 miners were sacked and coal production fell from 195 million tons to 165 million tons due to pit closures. The miners should also remember the paltry wage increases they got when the Labour Party

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were in power. At no stage did they receive more than 3 per cent.
The miners should also be reminded of what the right hon. Gentleman said on 6th May 1970. He pointed to Conservative hon. Members and said:
"… they come to us and say, ' Why have you allowed the coal mining industry to run down? Why do you not deal with this …?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th May, 1970; Vol. 801, c. 532.]
That quotation demonstrates the great concern which the right hon. Gentleman had in those days for the coal mining industry. They are not my words. They are convictions out of the right hon. Gentleman's own mouth of how little he cared for the coal miners.
As if that were not enough to show how little faith the right hon. Gentleman has in the coal mines, I remind the House that on 3rd February in a debate on the manpower rundown he said:
"The real problem of the North is that of older industries, notably coal, running down in the face of oncoming fuel industries, gas and nuclear power … ".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February 1970 ; Vol. 795, c. 278.]
I consider the right hon. Gentleman's attitude towards the present dispute to be brazen effrontery which should be exposed to the whole nation. I know that many of his right hon. and hon. Friends also consider it to be brazen effrontery.
I hope that the country will soon be out of this shocking situation. I believe that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House should join in——
Mr. Michael English Mr. Michael English(Nottingham, West)—in getting rid of the incomes policy.
Mr. Borden:—in ensuring that the Communist Party——
Mr. Eric G. Varley: Oh, my God!
Mr. Burden: It is all very well for the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) to say, "Oh, my God !" I have read what his own Leader said in 1966 when he was Prime Minister.
Mr. Varley: And the hon. Gentleman has just been answered.
Mr. Burden: The people have shown their repugnance to Communism by refusing to elect one member of that party to this House in the past 20 years. The
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Leader of the Opposition made it perfectly clear when he was Prime Minister that he recognised that the Communist Party was trying to control the nation by dominating the big unions which themselves could bring the country's industry to a halt.
It is in the interests of this country for hon. Members whether Conservative, Labour or Liberal, to do their duty and to join together to ensure that the Communist Party, which has been unable to send even one Member to Parliament, does not dominate our country through exploiting the trade unions.
7.50 p.m.
Mr. William Hamilton: I do not believe that the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) has done himself, the House or the nation any great service in the contribution that he has just made. Let me deal with his charge about Communists. I think that I am the only hon. Member who arrived here by defeating a Communist who had been a Member of Parliament for 15 years. I know very well that just as there are Communists in the trade union movement so there are Fascists in the Tory Party. I do not condemn the Tory Party because it has a few Fascists—one or two of them sitting here tonight. I do not condemn the Tory Party because it is a cross-section of the Right wing and the upper classes of Britain.
We represent a cross-section of the Left-wing working people and we collect to us either fellow travellers or, occasionally, in the unions, through apathy but sometimes by deliberate intent of the members, Communist leaders. That is essentially what democracy is about. We should be proud that Communists are allowed to reach positions in the House and in the trade unions by democratic processes which do not exist in the countries to which they owe allegiance. That is the strength of this country.
When I have gone round and talked to moderate miners—I represent one of the most militant constituencies in the country and I could not get away with some of the things I say about other matters if it were not—I have not heard anybody among the most responsible miners in my constituency say other than that the offer, far from being generous, does not measure up to the challenge of death that faces every miner every time

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he goes down the pit. My father was a miner, and he was compelled to work in a seam 17 in. high. Just visualise working a 17 in. seam for eight hours a day, five days a week. As a schoolboy I used to draw his pay, and if there were two pound notes in his pay packet he was very lucky. Of course, it is that tradition that has made the miners the militants and at the same time the moderates that they are.
I was appalled by the transformation of the Secretary of State for Employment between the first speech he made in his present capacity and his first television appearance, when he referred 50 or more times to this "generous" offer. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) is present, and I am glad that he is. As far as I know, there has been no reference in the debate to the article which he produced in The Guardian, which showed that far from the offer being 16 per cent., for a typical miner who is married with two children, taking account of his deductions in income tax, national insurance and with inflation running at the current rate, he gets not £4, £5 or £6 a week, but 61p net. The Government had better either refute these figures or confirm them. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has taken the matter up with the Government, but we deserve a reply.
I regret the fact that the hon. Member for Gillingham disappeared almost before resuming his seat. When he spoke about the Prime Minister's making an imaginative speech I could not think what he had been listening to. He had not been at the same match as I had. The Prime Minister, as is recognised increasingly by his supporters, yesterday bore all the characteristics of a cold, stubborn, rigid, inhuman and unimaginative man who is hell-bent on driving the country to ruin rather than admit any error of judgment anywhere in his policies of the last three and a half years. He has never once admitted that he has made a fundamental or even minor mistake. He said that there had been no confrontation. The whole country believes that this is confrontation, deliberately engineered by the Government for their party political purposes.
The Prime Minister made an election speech yesterday. He said that in the
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last 18 months no one had spoken to the trade unions more than he had. But what about the previous 18 months? I remember the Tories waving their Order Papers aloft when the Chancellor produced his October 1970 White Paper on new patterns of public expenditure, under which the Government were to cut social services, school milk, school meals, housing subsidies, and the rest. They produced the Industrial Relations Act. Ireland is not the only country to have its IRA. We have our IRA—the Industrial Relations Act—which is doing as much damage here as the IRA is doing in Belfast. There is also the Housing Finance Act, which was a deliberate attempt to take £200 million in subsidies out of the pockets of ordinary people.
Every Budget, without exception, has been designed to take from those who have least and to give to those who have most. This was confrontation and Tory Party politics, and the Tories were elected to do some of these things. When they said that they would reduce taxation the ordinary people believed them. They did not know that the idea was to reduce taxation on the wealthy. When the Conservatives said that they would cut expenditure the ordinary voter did not know that the cut would fall on the social services—in other words, that the Government were planning to destroy the standard of living of those already on a low standard and to give more to those who already had most. Now, of course, the Government are in desperate need of scapegoats and fall guys. The Arab sheikhs were blamed, then the miners, droughts in Russia, Watergate in the United States, and Pompidou in France. Everyone was blamed except the Government.
I want to say a word about the miners because I know a little about them. There was a debate in the House of Lords before Christmas, when Lord Boothby, a former Tory and an independent-minded man, condemned the Prime Minister for attacking at the strongest point. He said that he hoped it would not be followed by a Passchendaele. He was attacking the miners, but of course the miners cannot lose. The Government cannot afford to let them lose because they are our homegrown sheikhs, our home-grown Arabs. The Government are compelled to pay the price the Arabs are asking and they will

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be compelled to pay the price the miners are asking. The miners are far too moderate in their claim. I should like to take down a pit any Tory Member who cares to go. I will arrange it. I will find the lowest seam I can and I shall say "Climb up that bloody thing." Just going down a pit is worth £50 a week.
When previously the Tory Party was in power—and the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) was a member of that Government—there was not a statutory policy, but there was an incomes policy. The people whom the right hon. Gentleman attacked when he was a member of Mr. Macmillan's Government were the nurses. The right hon. Gentleman is on record as saying that the nurses could not have more than 2½ per cent.—and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer was the present Speaker.
I am sorry that Mr. Speaker is not here. I raised this matter when he was elected Speaker and I said that I would hurl it at him if he became Speaker. He is a good Speaker—I had better say that—but he was in the Government at the time.
That Government knew whom to attack. They attacked at the weakest point, for they knew that the nurses would not strike. Now they are sour, because they know that the miners have economic power, that they can use it and are using it, and the Government can do nothing about it. The longer this state of affairs goes on, the heavier the price the Government and the nation will have to pay.
In his idiocy, in his stupidity, in his rigidity, the Prime Minister says, "I, God Almighty, living in No. 10 for the moment, say that if the miners will not settle within phase 3 I will keep the country on a three-day week until the spring." I had a telegram handed to me only half an hour ago ; it was sent by a firm in Glenrothes. It says:
"172 employees will be made redundant at Cessna Fluid Power. Glenrothes, Fife. Further information telephone Glenrothes … AUEW."
Mr. Catherwood said on television the other night that by the end of this month we would have more than 3 million out of work, and that many of them would be permanently out of work because many firms would be going out of business permanently because of the stupidity and rigidity of the Prime Minister.
Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Of the miners.
Mr. Hamilton: I understood that the Tory Party believed in market forces. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said that the law of the market would solve everything. The miners are obeying the laws of the market. They are pursuing Tory Party dogma. They are saying, "We have something to sell. You, Mr. Heath, have something to buy and you cannot get it anywhere else, only from us." Who is the more patriotic, Mr. Harry Hyams, or Mr. Joe Gormley?
Mrs. Kellett-Bowman rose——
Mr. Hamilton: I shall not give way to the hon. Lady, who has only just entered the Chamber.
Who is more patriotic, Mr. Harry Hyams, who can make millions out of an empty Centre Point block, or Joe Gormley, who is leading 300,000 coal miners?
Whatever the history of this matter, the fact is that we need as much coal as quickly as we can get it. I am glad that at last we have a Minister for Energy. On the other hand, I greatly doubt whether we have the right man. Much has been said about the noble Lord who sits in the other place and not in this Chamber. He is the Chairman of the Tory Party. What will be his top priority—winning the next election for the Tory Party or winning the coal and the other energy supplies that the country needs? If the two conflict, which will come first?
The noble Lord gives moral lectures, as did the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) in the Sunday Express last week—and he had better keep a discreet silence and not give moral lectures to anybody. The same applies to Lord Carrington. He has been one of the most squalid property speculators under the present Government's legislation for the past two or three years. He now talks about my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition not giving a moral lead, but Lord Carrington is the last to talk like that.
Let them not talk to us about patriotism. Let them not talk about the national interest, and the rest of it. We know what the national interest is. We

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do not need any lessons in patriotism. But we know when we are on a winner, and we are on one on this occasion.
The people of this country will understand how they have been led to this—the "in" word is "impasse" ; it was first used by the right hon. Gentleman and it means that we are in a rut and do not know how to get out of it. The Prime Minister is determined to keep us in it until he gets his own way, but he will not get his own way, and the sooner he goes, the better.
8.5 p.m.
Mr. Stephen Hastings: The hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) always spoils such case as he has by the bitterness and aggression with which he speaks—I do not know how else to describe it. He would have made a good friend to John Knox in his day. His speech, so far as it went, was simply to the effect that we must give in to the miners as they are more powerful and we have no alternative. We understand his point of view.
I thought it unjust, if I may say so sincerely, that he should attack my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) as he did for posing what my hon. Friend believes to be a real danger facing the country because of the actions of the Communist Party. I shall have something to say about that myself. The hon. Member was disingenuous about this. He said that it was a good thing that we should have all extremes represented within the democratic process in this country and should congratulate ourselves on it, and that that was the end of the matter. I agree with him that all extremists have the right of access to the House, if they can get elected, but there is more to it than that, and many of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends know it perfectly well.
If, in this country, there were a faction on the Right so powerful as to represent the sort of threat that my hon. Friend and many of the rest of us believe to be represented by the Communist Party—and which many of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends believe to be represented by the Communist Party—I would earnestly trust and hope that the hon. Gentleman and many of his hon.
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Friends would be talking about it every day. I do not believe that he has the right to criticise my hon. Friend's speech in those terms. Although the hon. Gentleman may disagree with my hon. Friend he has the right and even the duty to speak as he did.
In many respects this is the most dangerous situation that I remember since coming to the House. In all sincerity, I find it difficult to know what to say to be useful in the debate, particularly at this stage, and so I ask hon. Members to forgive me if my remarks tend to be a little disjointed, for so many of the arguments have gone by already.
Of course, there are many anomalies in the three-day week, as many hon. Members have said. I hope that my right hon. Friend will pay particular attention to one worry which affects my own area and which was expressed by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) on behalf of glasshouse growers. A real threat is posed to an important industry here, and my right hon. Friend must bear it in mind.
Some have claimed that women's hair-dressing is a luxury, but it would be a brave man who defended that view very widely. Although something has been done, there is a case for more attention and there are other examples.
It is an extremely serious situation—it must be when we are suddenly approaching 1 million unemployed—but nevertheless I should like to interpose one note which may be different from what has been heard so far. It is a mistake to overdo the doom and gloom, for reasons that I shall mention. There may be a tendency to do this. This situation is manifestly difficult for small companies, although some are managing remarkably well and have discovered many economies in management. I know of at least one big industrial group which is now on 90 per cent. output while operating on 65 per cent. power. There are numerous examples of management and work force getting together in a way that they have not done for a long time. Perhaps it takes a crisis of this magnitude to make them realise that their interests are not so far apart after all.
The danger of overdoing the doom can be represented in an example I heard of the day before yesterday. It concerned a

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British firm trying to win a most important contract abroad. The firm's American competitors, backed up, I am sorry to say, by an institution of the American Government—if my information is correct—have been saying to the customer, "Do not pay any attention to the British. They will never deliver. This is what they are saying about themselves"—and quoting newspapers and statements by politicians in this country. Steel is available abroad. It is expensive and of course bears down on the pound, but it can be imported. Let us not overdo this attitude of gloom or we may talk ourselves out of successes which we might otherwise achieve.
I turn briefly to the miners' and train drivers' disputes, for the solution to these is the solution to all our ills. The miners' appeal has for me always been a moving one, particularly when it comes from the pits and the villages. I have, alas, little experience of these areas, but there have been speeches from a number of hon. Members, particularly from Opposition Members who really know the miners' life—such, for instance, as the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. Albert Roberts), who spoke yesterday, and, as was apparent, also from some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Fife, West. Conditions in the mining industry clearly are arduous and hazardous. I have never worked at the coal face and I would be the last to belittle this aspect of the miners' work or the hardships which they have to put up with.
I suspect that, given the danger to life and limb and the possibility of dangerous disease, our miners may be paid too little in comparison with other workers, for instance, car workers, printing machine operators, and possibly a number of others. It is, I know, difficult to use this argument in view of the example of the deep-sea fishermen, who were referred to earlier, but it remains in my mind a probability.
I am less impressed by the argument put forward yesterday and again today by the hon. Member for Fife, West and others, which might be called the "sheikhs" argument. It is claimed that the Government pay the sheikhs what they ask for the oil and that therefore the miners should be paid what they ask for the coal, and that this is the only way to get it. But that is precisely the
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position of the property speculator who is allegedly hoarding land. It is exactly the position which the Labour Party is always seeking to identify in business and stridently to condemn. This is an extraordinary position for the Labour Party to take. Here we see them using the hard-nosed laissez faire arguments of 50 years ago to defend the miners' position, while the Conservative Government are saying, "This is bad Socialism. It is unfair to millions of people and you must not do it."
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Where does the hon. Gentleman stand?
Mr. Hastings: I stand with the Government on this matter. If the hon. Gentleman stands with the hard-nosed argument perhaps he had better say so.
Mr. English rose——
Mr. Hastings: I shall not give way ; time is short. I am not being discourteous to the hon. Gentleman. I do not reject the claim that there is, or may be, a special case for the miners—this also appears to be the view of the TUC—but I was not very impressed with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition when he brandished the latest document from the TUC at the Dispatch Box yesterday. Memories are not that short. I recall that in 1969 a solemn and binding agreement was made with the Labour Government—perhaps with the best will in the world—but it was not worth the paper it was written on and it made fools of those right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who were in Government at the time.
It is well known that the TUC, for all it may wish to do so, cannot deliver the goods. On the other hand, if Mr. Scanlon or Mr. Jones came forward and said they were ready for a contract, on behalf of their unions, which recognised that the miners' claims were special, that would be a different matter. I have seen in the evening paper tonight—I have not had time to study it—that Mr. Scanlon has made a statement. I shall be interested to hear from my right hon. Friend whether there is substance in that suggestion.
Mr. James Hamilton: If the hon. Member had listened to Hugh Scanlon on "The World at One" today, and had listened to Clive Jenkins also, a member of a very militant trade union,

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he would realise that both gave a categorical assurance that they would not in any circumstances use the miners' case to further their members' ends.
Mr. Hastings: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for confirmation of what I said. I dare say that it would have to be considered in the light of any claims which are being made, but to my mind it seems to be a constructive step.
I turn now to the miners' claim. I quite appreciate what my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) meant when, with his usual impeccable logic, he said that relativity was impossible to define. I am sure that he is right to the extent that the result of any efforts in that direction would be imperfect, but in the present situation, for reasons which I have no time to go into now, I think that the attempt should be made, at least with regard to the nationalised industries, in which—let us face it—trade unions exercise monopoly power and Governments have up to now generally used the taxpayers' money to buy them off. They present a rather particular case.
I hope that the review to which my right hon. Friend referred earlier today—the comprehensive review of the mining industry—will contain as much precision as possible. Can my right hon. Friends not say that it will be ready for discussion by a definite date? Perhaps the end of September would not be unreasonable. Can they not say that it will take full account of the special circumstances of the industry—which would mean a greater relative advantage—and also a system of two-year contracts, such as, I believe, is worked in the United States, to maintain that position in future. I do not know what my right hon. Friend said to the miners' leaders yesterday, but I should have thought that more public precision on these proposals would be useful.
I believe that the National Union of Mineworkers should accept the position, having heard what my right hon. Friend had to say to them on the future. I believe this not only because of the need to maintain the counter-inflation policy, which I regard as vital, but for constitutional reasons which, in my view, go even deeper. They were expressed in the leading
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article in The Times yesterday in these terms:
"Defeat for this Government now"—
that is, by the mineworkers—
"would involve damage to the constitutional principle on which the authority of all governments in Britain is based".
That is a view which I share, and I regard it as a serious comment which all of us, especially in this place, should take into account.
In the few minutes remaining to me I shall turn to a subject which, if it did not raise the roof, at least raised the tempers of Opposition Members, though I cannot really accept that it should. If we feel it our duty to mention certain things, if we see danger to our country from the activities of anyone within it, this is the place in which to speak out. I hope that all hon. Members will take what I have to say in the sincere spirit in which it is meant. I refer to the militants.
This is a difficult subject to discuss. If one sets out to make a speech or statement about the activities of the Communist Party or its allies and friends, one is immediately told, "This is ' Reds under the bed ' talk. You must not do that. You will be laughed at." Well, I recognise that there are not very many reds under the bed—they are mostly in the bed—but there remains a lot to be said about them.
The Leader of the Opposition commented yesterday that the Government's policies were a gift to the militants. It seems to me that that is another way of saying that we must pay the moderates whatever they ask because if we do not we shall have to pay the militants more. That does not seem to me to be what Mr. Frank Smith was saying the other day, if he was accurately reported. I understood Mr. Smith to be saying, "We should not have broken our contract. We should not be throwing our fellow workers out of a job. We should accept the offer." If that be true—I am not saying that it is true, but that is how I read it—we are hardly helping him, as a moderate, by advocating surrender all over the place.
I am instructed that the NUM executive comprises 27 people with the chairman, six Communists and five Marxist

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fellow travellers who support them politically—I think that the chairman has no vote. That means a margin of one vote for moderation. Given the history of solidarity within the miners' union, it must be, and must have been continuously throughout this story, very difficult for the moderates. We cannot afford not to take account of that position. It is one vote, and that is all. I dare question whether they would have ever broken their agreement or thrown out the latest offer out of hand if it had not been for those 11 men. What do they want? They make no secret of it. Their Bible—the Communists', anyway—is the Morning Star. I quote:
"The power of the trade union movement is strong enough to help the miners and drivers to win. defeat Heath's vicious cutback, smash phase 3 and compel his Government to resign. Strong enough also to commit a Labour Government to carry out Left policies, opening the road to Socialism."—
we know what that means—
"That power must be used to the full without delay."
Those words are perfectly plain in their meaning.
Two things have impelled the Communists, who have been relatively cautious previously, in like circumstances, into an all-out attack. The first is the energy crisis, which they saw as a real opportunity to embarrass the country. The second is pressure from the new Left groups who are taking support from them, particularly from young people ; and some of these groups are particularly sinister on their own account, especially the International Socialists.
Of course I know that the moderates in the trade union movement—and that is the vast majority—are as worried about this as are the rest of us, particularly the moderates near the top. I accept what was said earlier in the debate, that the majority of the miners are not interested in playing politics. I am not talking about the majority ; I am talking about the few. One does not need many to disrupt and destroy, if one has them in the right places. I quote one trade union leader:
"I have never known a militant progressive Socialist with an original constructive idea in his head. At all times destructive policies flow from them. One idea permeates their thinking—destroy. Where militant progressives take over, the destruction of the Labour Movement follows as night follows day. The time has
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come when to serve the Labour Party we must challenge the arrogance and hysteria of this minority."
That was said by Mr. Jim Conway, the General Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, in December 1973. If he does not know what he is talking about, I doubt whether any Labour hon. Member does—[Interruption.]—including the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who makes more noise on his backside than he does when on his feet, and that is saying something.
Let it never be forgotten that the reason these people have wormed their way into positions of such power in the trade union movement is that for decades they have been consistently and summarily rejected by the electorate. All Communists in this country must know that their ideas, their methods and their Soviet masters are not wanted here. Having failed to use the democratic process they have decided to abuse it, in accordance with their doctrine.
Mr. George Cunningham: Try a ballot.
Mr. Hastings: We face a situation of crisis which in all probability would never have arisen without the activities of these people. Their real aims have about as much to do with the welfare of miners as they have to do with space research. They have helped, to say the least, to bring our economy grinding towards a halt. They threaten the integrity of one of the two great parliamentary parties represented in the House. It is time that the truth was told about them. It is time that the Government divulged the facts which they know so well. It is time that hon. Members of the Opposition spoke up for their beliefs in this respect, for we know very well that they hold them. Indeed, it is time for all hon. Members who are willing to practise what they preach about parliamentary democracy to stand together on this issue, for the day may come when—even here—it is too late.
8.25 p.m.
Mr. Ray Carter: When any Government of any part of the Western world gets into trouble, all the old fears are dragged out and paraded before the electorate in the hope that the minds of the electorate will be diverted from the basic problems. I cannot accuse the hon. Member for

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Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) of that because he has been on this theme probably for most of his political life and certainly for as long as I have known him and since he has been in the House.
There are times when this Communist bogy is forgotten. For example, the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden), in defence of the moderates, mentioned an article written by Mr. Frank Chapple, the Secretary of the EETPU, which was critical of Communist elements within his and other trade unions. But I remember a dispute in 1971 which involved the Electrical Trades Union. Who was the General Secretary of the ETU at that time? None other than Mr. Frank Chapple. That man, who is now apparently the scourge of the Communist Party, was then, according to the Government—as we heard from Ministers day in and day out—trying to bring the country to a grinding halt and to sabotage the electrical industry and hence all industry in this country. [An hon. Member: "He grew up."] He grew up in a remarkably short space of time. I guarantee that in a few months the hon. Member for Gillingham may find it possible to criticise Mr. Chapple once again.
What about the miners? Until 1972 they had not had an official strike for 26 years. Yet Communists had been on the executive of the NUM and occupied key positions within the union, and in all that time there had been no industrial disputes. I do not recall Conservatives during that time criticising the mine-workers for being led by wild, militant, anti-British people. The Conservatives are selective in their arguments. That is typical of the Conservative Party, but it is probably equally typical of any Government. When Governments get into a corner they parade bogys such as the Communist Party to divert attention from the heart of the matter and the basic problems that have to be faced in time of crisis.
The Prime Minister yesterday dwelt upon the large amount of consultation between the Government and the trade union movement. Not many of us accept that there has been over-much consultation, or that when consultations took place they were sincere. There was no discussion about the introduction of
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the three-day week. That is an unprecedented move for any Government at any time, particularly in peace time. We have all been asking ourselves why there was no consultation. Some people said that it was because it was a gigantic political manoeuvre on the part of the Government leading to a General Election. Others said that the Government could not enter into consultation because the policy was not clearly thought out. I think that it is probably a mixture of the two.
It is a political but certainly not a clearly thought-out scheme. But that is only to be expected. After all, the Government have made a mess of everything to which they have put their hands. They have enjoyed no successes at all, whether in economic or social policies or in foreign affairs. One looks in vain for success. One looks for one single chink of light in the darkness, but there is nothing.
Mr. John Mendelson: Except for the rich taxpayers.
Mr. Carter: Yes, the rich taxpayers. The Government have certainly stood by them. We do not hear very much about that from the Government, however.
We are now paying the price for the Government's manoeuvring with the three-day week. In the West Midlands, the introduction of the three-day week has already been a disaster. It needs only the three-day week to go on, not for another month but for another fortnight, for the mass of industry in the West Midlands to be brought not to a two-day or even one-day week but to a complete and grinding halt. I remind the House that 60 per cent. of people employed in the West Midlands are employed in industry. It is not a service-based area. It is the heart of the country's industrial life, and if it comes to a stop the economic life of the country comes to a halt as well.
The Prime Minister has said that the planning was done in order that we could go on with the three-day week even until the spring. If we go on for another fortnight or three weeks with that kind of policy, we shall have a complete disaster on our hands. How anyone can think that we could possibly go on to the spring and yet maintain a balanced

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orderly economy is beyond comprehension. Where the Government get their advice from, I do not know.
Already, in the West Midlands, one-third of a million people are on short time, and that figure includes only those who are either paid by results, are on hourly pay, or are on some non-weekly wage rate. We could double that figure if we added to it those employed on guaranteed weeks or on a staff basis. These people are working a three-day week, just as the industrial workers are. Forty per cent. of the nation's workers who are currently on short time or a three-day week are employed in the Midlands, and in a fortnight's time the present policy could mean 75 to 80 per cent. of the workers in the Midlands on short time.
The reason for this is that we have virtually no exemptions. We have not masses of hairdressers in the West Midlands. We have not masses of food-processing industries. We have not energy-based industries. We have overwhelmingly manufacturing industries. There are very few exemptions. I appeal to the Government to look at this question of exemptions in order to save the economy of the West Midlands, because the West Midlands has almost no exemptions at all. We all know that employment and the income derived from it promotes business and economic activity in a variety of other ways, and we in the West Midlands will suffer disproportionately compared with the rest of the country.
I have a car factory in my constituency employing 25,000 workers. In the West Midlands, one in four workers is bound up in the car industry. The industry is Britain's biggest export earner. So far during the three-day week period, output has not dropped to what one might expect—to 60 or 65 per cent.—but has fallen to less than 50 per cent. There has not been a straightforward proportional reduction.
I met the directors of the company on Monday, when they told me that, given a fortnight or three weeks more of the present policy, it would mean absolute ruin for the industry. If we get anything like the cutback in steel production and deliveries which my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) referred to on top of the restrictions of
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the three-day week, the British car industry could be completely brought to a halt.
Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: The hon. Gentleman has given us some interesting figures. Will he also give the loss of car production figures as the result of strikes in the past year and the consequential loss of export revenue?
Mr. Carter: I should not have given way. British Leyland at Longbridge has been producing a record number of cars. The loss of revenue has been virtually none. Ministers have praised the car industry for the high level of its output. It has been performing over the past 18 months in a way which makes it all the more tragic that we should be in our present position. The car industry has been performing in a way in which it has not performed before.
The three-day week will spell ruin if it gees on for any time. British Ley-land has just turned the corner in terms of viability. It is looking forward to a future which five or six years ago nobody thought it had. If the three-day week persists, I am afraid that British Leyland may well go the way of many other British car companies. Indeed, it may go further than that and we may cease to have a viable car industry in the West Midlands.
That is a savage price to pay for a little flexibility on the part of the Government. That is particularly so when we come to realise, as most people do, that in the final analysis there will be some kind of compromise. The alternative is that the miners will give in. I do not think any hon. Member believes that that will happen. I do not believe that even the Minister for Energy believes that. They will not give in. The Prime Minister knows that and so do all his Ministers. That leaves us only with a compromise. Surely that will happen. But look at the tragic price which we shall have to pay in the intervening period.
British industry is in an appalling state. It is ill equipped, there is low investment and appalling industrial relations. In the years which lie ahead it must try to cope with the massive problem of the balance of payments. On top of the industry's problems there is the three-day week. It

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may well be that the Government, knowing of that, have introduced such a policy for purely political reasons. When things do not start coming right in the months which lie ahead the Government may refer to the miners' dispute and lay the blame at the door of the miners.
I do not think that the Government will be able to do that. The British electorate is far more sophisticated and knowledgeable than this Government or most Governments since the war have ever given it credit for being. It is extremely sophisticated. I can assure Conservative hon. Members that there are not many people in my constituency, be they Tory, Labour, Liberal or the dreaded Communists to whom reference has been made, who believe that the Government have control of the situation.
I do not believe that the three-day week was completely political in conception. There may have been a hastily drawn up scheme which the Government thought could cope with the imaginary problems which the Government considered they had before them. But they did not get their sums right. It is because of that that the three-day week is already working havoc in British industry. I make an appeal to the Government. I have almost given up doing so because they never listen. That applies particularly to the Prime Minister. The Government must get to grips with the miners' problem at the earliest opportunity. If they do not do so, British industry, and especially industry in the West Midlands, could be destroyed. It could be damaged in such a way that it might never recover.
8.40 p.m.
Sir John Rodgers: None of us, in whatever part of the House we sit, can be anything but worried about the economic situation. I have not the time, nor perhaps the ability, to analyse the reasons or to discuss how far it has been caused by international reasons over which we have no control, how much it is our own fault or the fault of management or unions and how much responsibility politicians must bear.
I have some sympathy with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Carter). The three-day working week is causing havoc. I believe that it is pressing
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very hard on the smaller firms, particularly those which depend largely on female labour and particularly on married women. Just before the recess I tried in the debate about the rising of the House to ask the Leader of the House whether the Government had thought of creating some machinery, some "court of appeal", to which small firms in particular but all firms up to a point could put their problems from which they could seek assistance.
I could not, unfortunately, wait for my right hon. Friend's reply, since I had two engagements in my constituency, but when I read HANSARD two days later, I was sorry to see that he made no reference to the matter, possibly because I was not there to hear him. So I will repeat what I said, because it is important.
I do not query the Government's decision to restrict working days and hours in order to economise on electricity consumption. It was a decision of the Government as a whole, I am sure. I do not query, given all the facts that they had then and the request by the CEGB to make such economies in order to avoid a complete breakdown, that their overall decision was amply justified. Nor do I query that the area boards were best qualified to assess the situation and to make arrangements which they thought would be in the best interests of the people of this country.
What I do query, however, is why the Government, having felt that this was the right thing to do, have not established any machinery to look into individual cases or even to consider the operation of the three-day week.
A letter from a firm in my constituency highlights what I am trying to say. It employs over 400 people right in the heart of rural Kent, most of them married women. Normally, they work three shifts on most of the business and in one operation they have a night shift as well.
The letter says that the company is in area T2, and goes on:
"The Company and its employees understand the nature of the Government's problem and have responded, if not willingly at least with some sympathy, to the disruption of private life involved in working Thursday to Saturday. It is a major disruption because the majority of our employees are women and Saturdays pose very special problems for housewives and mothers with school age children. In this sense we feel that the burden is

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being unfairly shared between those Companies selected for Monday/Wednesday working and those selected for Thursday/ Saturday working.
The final bitter twist of the knife came with the announcement that the working day was to be construed as 6 a.m. to 6 a.m. This means that the nightshift are now expected to work from 10 p.m. on Saturday night to 6 a.m. on Sunday morning. It is the view of this Company and of its employees … that it is wholly unreasonable for anybody to be asked to work from 10 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Sunday. I cannot blame any employee who refuses to work such hours. If they do so, however, their weekly income will be cut to two days per week without the option of obtaining unemployment benefit for the shift which they have declined to work.
It seems to us that the burden of three-day working could have been more equitably shared if the working day was defined as being from 10 p.m. to 10 p.m. This would mean that those firms lucky enough to be selected for Monday to Wednesday working would on a shift basis commence working at 10 p.m. on Sunday night and finish at 10 p.m. on Wednesday night. It is our belief that this is nationally a more acceptable arrangement than to ask the Thursday to Saturday people to work their last shift from Saturday night to Sunday morning."
That is one example. It would be worth looking into such a point. It may well be a good one.
My hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Sir P. Bryan) put forward something which ought to be looked into. There is no Government machinery to take up such points as whether it would be fair to rotate the three-day working system so that firms were not always working Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, Friday, Saturday. There is also the possibility of closing shops for one day and having one or two full days' working by industry.
There is a genuine need for some body to be set up, perhaps within the Department of Trade and Industry. The job should not be given to the area electricity boards. They are all right for telling people how to control the amount of electricity to be used but they should not adjudicate on which systems should be used by the workers. We have a new Department of Energy. Maybe it is thinking of setting up such a body. It should have been done two or three weeks ago. It is difficult to know to which Department one should go.
I welcome the creation of the Department of Energy and am particularly delighted at the appointment of the
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Minister for Energy who is to be the Department's spokesman in this House. I think that at last we shall get some action. The Government are a little bit to blame for the way in which the three-day week is working.
8.46 p.m.
Mr. Michael English: There have been two sorts of speech in this debate coming from Conservative Members. One sort has been relatively serious and constructive, such as the speech by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir J. Rodgers) or the brilliant speech from the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). The other sort has smacked of paranoia. All Governments and governing parties tend to get a little paranoiac when in a mess. I have heard it on my own side of the House. I have heard eminent men on my side of the House blame the "Gnomes of Zurich" for the fact that they had not devalued the pound when they should have done. Now I hear individuals opposite blaming members of the Communist Party for all the problems from which we are now suffering.
This paranoia started with the speech of the Prime Minister yesterday. We have all mentioned the word "relativities," as the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said. The Prime Minister's speech was, I think, the first in which it was mentioned. He said:
"We immediately entered into discussions with the CBI and TUC about the anomalies report"—
He is talking about the Government—
"and will do the same about the report on relativities when it reaches us from the Pay Board. We asked for it to come to us by 31st December. It is no fault of the Government's that it has not reached us."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th January 1974 ; Vol. 867, c. 21.]
When I was in industry if I had a committee responsible to me and if I had gone to my director saying, "I am sorry, I asked the committee for a report but I have not got it yet, it is not my fault," I know what my director would have said. He would have been correct. Who set up the Pay Board? Who appointed it? Who can dismiss it, destroy it? To whom is it responsible? The Government.
If the Government asked for a report by 31st December and did not get it, then I am sorry, but the Government must, as must all Governments, bear the

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responsibility. The ultimate responsibility in governing the country is the Government's. They cannot say, "It is not our fault, we did not get it in time."
There are other things for which people in this country will blame the Government. I am getting so near to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West these days that when I spoke to my Young Conservatives last Monday I said that I might fall out with them because I was a Labour-Powellite. It turned out that half of them agreed with me anyway. The right hon. Gentleman has frequently mentioned inflation and what he believes to be its cause—the increase in the money supply. It is highly significant that when the money supply declined the increase in property values suddenly came to an end. There is no obvious lack of connection there.
The Government attribute the cause to rising import prices. The September before last the Bank of England Quarterly said that the import content of prices was 20 per cent. Therefore, if import prices go up by 10 per cent. internal prices go up by 2 per cent. I am sure that everybody in this country wishes that they had gone up by that sort of figure.
There are other aspects of the Government's policy which the Government have admitted were inflationary. They have said that they were adopting inflationary policies in order to secure growth. But they cannot say that they were not warned, and not only by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. They were warned by the Expenditure Committee of this House last July. The General Sub-Committee of the Expenditure Committee reported upon the last lot of expenditure cuts of 21st May and said:
"The figures suggest that provided that productive potential is sufficient to enable the economy to go on expanding at around 5 per cent. per annum, and provided the terms of trade (which have been deteriorating) return to the level of the first quarter of 1973, there will be room for a continuing expansion of personal consumption. On the other hand, should the economy only be able to expand at a rate of 3–4 per cent. and should the terms of trade deteriorate further"
—as they did—
"there may well be little if any scope for the further expansion of consumption."
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The Government were propagating inflation for the sake of growth, knowing that there would be no increase in personal consumption even if there were a 4 per cent. growth rate. What the average trade unionist—he does not have to be a Communist—and indeed what the average Conservative housewife need if there is inflation and prices go up is for their personal incomes to go up. They are not concerned with the growth of the economy. Perhaps they should be in the abstract. Perhaps they should think, "It is for the benefit of the country if we have a 4 per cent. growth rate and no increase in personal consumption." But they do not think in that way.
Nevertheless that is the reason why the Government were deliberately causing inflation. It has now turned out that they cannot even achieve that. They were causing inflation in an attempt to secure growth, even knowing, as the House of Commons Expenditure Committee warned, that it could not have any effect on the personal consumption of individuals.
In order to counter the inflation which they generated, they introduced a rigid statutory incomes policy. This is where I slightly part company with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. Like him, I do not believe in it. He said that no man could operate an incomes policy. I am afraid that there are men who can. If he had said that no man can operate such a policy justly, I would agree. But I am afraid there is an area in the world where there is a statutory incomes policy which is enforced, and that is Russia and its satellite States. I find it incredible when certain hon. Members opposite—the paranoiacs—refer to reds under the bed. What they are fighting are the moderates in the National Union of Mine-workers——
Mr. Heffer: Does my hon. Friend not also agree that there is a statutory incomes policy in Spain, and that it is in the extreme Left and Right dictatorships that we get these statutory policies?
Mr. English: I chose the example of Russia because it is among the larger of the world's economies and also because it is a Communist State, and Communists have been mentioned. We know that the

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Communist Party is hypocritical, but Communists are not the only hypocrites. Last night the leader of the Liberal Party, which is conspicuous now at the end of this debate by its absence, said:
"My colleagues and I believe in the necessity for a statutory prices and incomes policy".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th January 1974 ; Vol. 867, c. 66.]
He then led his troops into our Lobby. They are hypocritical. Some members of the Communist Party in the NUM are hypocritical.
The basic point is that an incomes policy can work only in an authoritarian State. It is a Socialist policy only in the sense that people use the word "socialist" in the USSR. It is a Liberal policy only in the sense that Liberals like Martell—who left the Liberal Party to join the Fascists—mean.
The adoption of an incomes policy means deliberately interfering between and determining the whole process of management and negotiation in industry. Directors of engineering companies have been coming to me, and no doubt to hon. Gentlemen opposite, and saying, "The number of assistant managers has increased. All the foremen have become assistant managers and their immediate underlings have become foremen." To stop that, to get away from an incomes policy in that way, we then have to determine the processes of promotion and demotion in industry.
The National Coal Board is unable to run the coal industry. It might or might not reach agreement with the mine-workers—I believe that it could do so—but it is not allowed to do so, because the Government are interfering in the responsibilities of the NCB to run the industry.
There is another reason why an in-incomes policy can work only in an authoritarian State. Because we live in a democracy we have free speech. In a democracy people cannot be stopped from noticing anomalies whereas in a dictatorship they can. Salaries and wages do not have to be published in a dictatorship. Only those which are convenient are published.
We cannot prevent mineworkers from noticing property developers. But it need not only be property developers ; it
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could be footballers, pop singers, or, with respect to the hon. Member for Sevenoaks, members of the advertising industry on whom we spend almost as much as on education. Would the country come to a halt if pop singers, footballers or even members of the advertising industry stopped working overtime? It certainly would not come to this grinding semi-halt to which it has come at the moment.
People in this country are not paid on their essential nature to the community, and they know it. So long as the Government do not make themselves responsible for what they are paid, the system works, as it has for generations. If the Government introduce a rigid statutory incomes policy, make no mistake they will be held responsible for the remuneration of pop singers, footballers, advertisers and anybody else of whom there is any criticism. Relativities are far more important and deeper than they ever thought. Every criticism against the nature of society in terms of income will be levelled at those who make themselves responsible for it. I warn the Government that if that is what they want, they are heading for a situation where they have to accept that responsibility, ghastly as it will be for them in political terms, or decide to convert this country into an authoritarian State.
We do not need to take the extreme examples that I have mentioned. I wonder how many people in the mining industry have noticed or been told what appeared in the Financial Times—namely, that the profits of companies declaring in October were 42 per cent. up on the previous 12 months and that in September they were even higher. Those who suggested to a miner, "Do you not think that a 16 per cent. settlement is fair?", should not be surprised in a democracy if he says, rightly, "Why cannot I have a 42 per cent. increase like the companies referred to in the Financial Times".
9.0 p.m.
Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn: I am sure that the House, including, I hope, the Treasury Bench, will agree that it was right on the part of the Opposition parties to demand the recall of Parliament and right of the Government to assent to its recall. To this extent, I agree with what was said by

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the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell)—that parliamentary debate is an ingredient in a solution to our problems.
Having said that, I think that the House will also accept that the situation today is graver than it was when the House met yesterday and that the reason for the deterioration since yesterday is, first, that the Prime Minister intervened too hastily to write down the value of the TUC offer and, secondly, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, without Cabinet consultation, apparently rejected it out of hand. At any rate, I understand that the talks at No. 10 have now concluded, that further talks are to be held on Monday and therefore that we are in a position at the end of this debate on behalf of the Opposition to ask the Government to respond to what the TUC has put forward.
The Opposition's view may be summarised briefly. It is to invite the Government to take the TUC proposal very seriously ; to allow the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers the right to negotiate freely and to reach a settlement at which normal working could be resumed ; to set aside the Pay Board—which has been a major complication in the situation—entirely from the mining dispute ; to let the Secretary of State himself decide, as Parliament intended he should in any case where the national interest required Ministers to take responsibility ; and finally to call off the three-day week.
One of the subjects for special emphasis today has been the three-day week. I think that many of my hon. Friends, and most people outside who have experienced it, will agree that anyone who had doubts about the Government's real motives for the three-day week will have had those doubts wholly dispelled after hearing the Prime Minister yesterday.
The Prime Minister's attempt to justify the three-day week was not concerned, as one would expect, were it a genuine proposal, with husbanding the nation's fuel resources and protecting the people at a moment of shortage. It was an act of mobilisation for a long war against the miners.
We in this House have a duty on behalf of our constituents and on behalf of the country—and right hon. and hon. Members
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on both sides have tried to discharge it—to draw attention to the very high cost of the three-day week. I have asked the Prime Minister for the Government's estimate of the cost of the three-day week. No estimate is forthcoming officially from the Government. Some indication has been given by the National Economic Development Office, but in practice there is no one here tonight who disputes that the three-day week will have a grave effect on production, on exports and on investment.
For those working in industry it means a savage and direct cut in their wages. There will be inevitable bankruptcies among small businessmen—and we bear in mind that the Conservative Party has so often boasted to be their special friends in Government and in Parliament. It will mean higher unemployment in terms not only of lay-offs in the short run but of higher unemployment for a longer period if the bankruptcies mount to the level to which they may mount and, if the grave damage to the steel industry about which many of my hon. Friends spoke in the debate has the effect that we fear. It will also have a very serious effect upon the morale of the nation when people realise, as they are now coming to realise, that this was part of the mobilisation of psychological warfare against the miners by the Government. That is what the people believe, and I will give the House the reasons why they believe it.
First they believe it because the Government have throughout suppressed key figures—no one more than the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry now, thank goodness, stripped of the responsibilities which he discharged so poorly for the nation's energy resources. The Government have suppressed the coal figures. The Government have suppressed the oil figures. The Government have ordered public authorities set up by Parliament not to answer questions put to them by Members of Parliament, which is a complete denial of the duty of a public authority to tell the public how it is discharging its statutory responsibilities.
The Government have implied that 7 million tons is the minimum stock, without telling the public that in the past four years stocks have been below 7 million tons for no fewer than 16 weeks, thus implying that we were on the point of

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crisis. The Government have pretended that the CEGB ordered the three-day week when the CEGB was operating on the basis of oil supplies that had been cut to 75 per cent. of what they were last winter, an understandable policy following the Rothschild Think Tank's analysis of the need for a stronger coal industry, but not making sense when the Government were faced either with the restoration of 100 per cent. oil supplies or putting the nation on a three-day week.
In his pre-Christmas speech the Prime Minister made great play with the effect of the ASLEF dispute upon coal deliveries from the coal mines to the power stations, although the British Railways Board has made it clear that there has not been the slightest delay in the delivery of coal from the pits to the power stations. Were there time, I could give the House the information that is pouring in from power stations and pits all over the country, giving the lie to the scares that the Cabinet has systematically tried to use to justify its policy.
The fact is that the Government cut oil to the power stations and then ordered the restoration of some of that oil. Because they did not control the multinational oil companies, or have any real power over them, they were unable to get the restoration of the oil to see us through the winter. There was no consultation with the CBI or the TUC. Could anyone seriously believe that management or labour would have opted for a three-day week on this basis, which gives entertainment priority over exports, domestic use of all kinds priority over production, and pleasure motoring priority over oil for power stations? It does not make sense as a management decision.
The right hon. Member the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said in the new year that the oil problem did not exist, that our only problem was the coal crisis. At that time, he was trying characteristically to get cheap political popularity by saying there would be no petrol rationing. The right hon. Gentleman knows better than most that the three-day week will bankrupt Britain long before the coal runs out.
The Government have done nothing to protect the housewives working a seven-day week on a three-day pay packet. They have done nothing to lift the three-day
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waiting rule. They have done nothing about family allowances during the crisis. They have given no special help to industry. They have done nothing whatever that one would expect both the CBI and the TUC to require of them to try to see us through this difficulty with the minimum damage to our fundamental strength.
The people do not believe the reasons that the Prime Minister has given. They see this as part of the Prime Minister's obsessive campaign against the miners. They see now the explanation of why the mini-Budget before Christmas contained no tax increases—because the Chancellor of the Exchequer found a way of getting more money out of the pockets of working people by the wage cut than he did and should have done by some redistribution of wealth.
I would only say that watching the Prime Minister I am reminded of his predecessor, Sir Anthony Eden, at the time of Suez obsessively pursuing a policy which would lead to the destruction of a basic national interest and backed up by a group of party supporters hypnotised by his strength into neglecting their duty to defend the country they were elected to represent. It would have taken this Prime Minister to get a ban on overtime by Spitfire pilots during the Battle of Britain—and I believe he could have done that given half a chance.
Perhaps the Prime Minister should think of what Harold Macmillan or Churchill would have done. He might indeed at least use the phrase which equally applies to the miners—"never has so much been owed by so many to so few". There have been 15,000 deaths from pneumoconiosis in the mining industry in the last 15 years, and if the Conservative Party had recognised in its public speeches the debt this country owes to the miners one quarter of their problems would be solved.
Now we come to the Government's reasons for rejecting the miners' claim. First, stage 3 must be upheld. Stage 3 was destroyed by the escalation of oil prices. The outdated calculations upon which it was based are known to all. The Government have themselves directly violated stage 3 by announcing through the Chancellor that there would be substantial increases in coal and electricity prices which were not provided for in the Pay and

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Prices Code. Ministers have said, which is not true, that stage 3 has the force of law. Stage 3 never had the force of law. It was an advisory document to the Pay Board. And it was for the Pay Board to consider it. The law came in only if there were a settlement on which the Pay Board imposed an order to desist and then there would be a prosecution only under the fiat of the Attorney-General. The law has never been a part of this situation. Ministers have sought to imply that we are upholding our constitution against a lot of law breakers. The Secretary of State for Employment knows full well that Parliament has given him the power to set aside any Pay Board ruling, and that is what he should do.
Another argument is that the settlement is unfair to other workers. That is a most interesting argument. We have heard tonight from many people who have described how private industry has got round stage 3 by regrading, fiddling, sacking and re-engaging, and by reorganising its structure. It is the public sector, with higher standards of management morality, which has observed stage 3, and if anybody thinks that the ordinary workers who have not the organised strength of the miners have a friend in the Government they do not understand what is going on now among the shop workers, the hospital workers or those who lack the muscle of the miners.
We are also told that the offer is generous. The figure of 163½ per cent. has been quoted. Now 16½ per cent. is a good offer for someone on £10,000 a year and the man who reads his Daily Telegraph and hears the figure of 16½ per cent. might well calculate that he would do well. The plain truth is—and it has never been denied—that after taxation, national insurance and the rise in prices the Government offer is worth 60p a week for the miners, compared to what they were earning a year ago. When I hear talk about ransom and blackmail, I must say that I have never heard of a blackmailer being prepared to settle for 60p a week.
These arguments are getting through to the public. The fact is that people understand the miners' case. It will not do to pretend that it is all due to the Communists because, candidly, if the Government believed that, they would have used their own legislation to have
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a ballot of the miners to establish straight away whether the miners support their executive members or not. I should like to meet the Conservative who inquires whether the coal he burns in his hearth has been dug by a Communist, or whether the train in which he travels as a commuter is driven by a Communist, before we listen to the sort of talk we have had today, which is a warning to the nation what it must expect when the General Election comes.
It is also slightly odd that the Communist Party shared with the Prime Minister in 1970 one thing in common—opposition to a statutory wages policy—and, when the Prime Minister has abandoned his manifesto and the Communist Party still believes in it, that is said to be an undermining of the British constitution. Ministers must find a rather better argument than that.
People in this country now know, even more than they did before the oil price increase, that we need the coal. They see the miners fighting the same battles as they fight, because the miners have to face higher prices and higher rents and have all the difficulties that have been intensified in the past 12 months.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) is good and accurate with a slide rule and he has produced figures—which have never been challenged—to show that real living standards fell last year while trading profits went up by 16 per cent., dividend and interest payments by 28 per cent., and net asset value of property companies by 20 per cent. There has been massive redistribution of wealth and income but it has been in the wrong direction.
I wish to say a word to Ministers as well as to editors and television interviewers about the way in which they treat the miners on television and in the Press. It sickens many people—I am one of them—that when there is a mining disaster and a man is lying trapped in water in a dark underground roadway for days, and newspapers show photographs of grief-stricken widows in a mining village, the miners are the heroes of Britain, but when they put in a wage claim which not a single hon. Member of the House would accept as a basis for his own living wage, they are described as Communists and blackmailers holding the country to ransom.

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Ministers, editors and television interviewers get incomes far in excess of those which the miners could ever dream of getting. Ministers, editors and television interviewers get incomes which are secretly arrived at. Their incomes are never discussed on television as to whether they are justified, or whether the person concerned should get the sum proposed. These people are the last who should misrepresent the miners of this country and try to hold them up to public abuse.
If there is a new element entering into the whole argument of incomes policy it is simply this: we have come to the end of the road when the rich and the powerful can expect to get a hearing from working people as they ask them to restrain their incomes in order to preserve the pattern of wealth and property which the rich and powerful use so much to their own advantage.
It is time that we had a new look at the incomes policy question. I put this to the Secretary of State because his mind is bent mainly on this problem. Successive Governments have tried and failed with policies which bore some resemblance to the one which the present Government first thought of introducing. But we must now try to look at this problem from the point of view of those whose consent is essential if any such policy is to work.
I have a word to say here to those commentators and editors who look through every speech and every manifesto for a sentence containing a reference to a tough incomes policy as somehow a test of credibility or of statesmanship. In effect, all that these pompous editorialists and commentators are saying is that they want us here, across the Floor of the House, to agree to tight wage control as the basis for future policy, whichever Government be in power. When we are told that this is the time for straight talking, for plain speaking, for doses of reality and for moments of truth, let us perform our representative function and say to those who put that to us that they must now learn the hard truth, listen to some straight talking and have a dose of reality.
For tight wage control by law will not work, and by consent will never be achieved unless we are able to make a change in our whole approach to the sort of society we have. [HON. MEMBERS:
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"Ah."] Obviously, what those hon. Member who shouted "Ah" meant was that this House is inextricably linked in its existence and its democratic practice with one form of distribution of wealth and income, and that the people cannot use Parliament democratically to change the distribution of wealth and income. But of course it is just that change that we must have.
Unless and until there is a major social reform to make our society fairer and more nearly equal, workers will not cooperate in wage control where they have bargaining power and if they have the strength to resist. And they are right. They remember what the Prime Minister did to the postmen when he had the big stick, and they know what he has done to the lower-paid workers. When the Government have the power, they use it to keep living standards down.
It is time that the Government, all right hon. and hon. Members and people in Press and television listened more to what the trade union movement is trying to say to us about the problems of an incomes policy. It is no use saying that, unless the trade union movement can overnight convert itself into a corporation which can be accountable for the behaviour of all its members, nothing it says is a bankable guarantee or is worth examining.
The trade union leader, with less backing than a Minister—for he does not have the statute book at his disposal—has to operate by consent. He has to listen to his members. It is not too much to ask that Ministers should listen to what the trade unions say. The Secretary of State had the reputation, no doubt justly, in Ireland of being one to listen. If he has listened, he will have learned that during his Government's period in power the trade union movement has put forward highly constructive proposals about how, given that most trade unionists do not share the present Government's political philosophy, something could be done to create an atmosphere in which co-operation would be possible.
What have the trade unions asked for? They have asked for fairer Budgets so that an incomes policy did not just mean wage control without some re-examination of the distribution of wealth and income at the top. They have asked for food

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subsidies, which would make a great difference to many millions of families. They have asked for a rent freeze. They have asked for higher pensions—which gives the lie to the argument that the trade union movement is concerned only with its own members' wage claims, for it was the TUC which played a notable part in triggering off and continuing the campaign for a higher pension. They have asked for an end to property speculation. They have asked for the repeal of the Industrial Relations Act, for it to be put on ice, as Stormont was put on ice by the right hon. Gentleman when he assumed his earlier responsibilities.
All these proposals that the trade union movement has put forward represent the beginnings of a basis of cooperation on which something might be achieved. They are all embodied in the programme which the Labour Party will put before the public at the General Election, but they have all also come forward to the present Government in proposals from the TUC. No one thinks that he will get 100 per cent. acceptance of anything in a voluntary society, but if the Government and Fleet Street expect TUC leaders to sign on the dotted line to prop up an unfair society, let me tell them that it will not happen. If they did sign on the dotted line, it would mean nothing whatsoever ; if it did mean something, it would not be just to use the trade union movement to underpin a society so fundamentally unfair in its distribution of rewards.
The basic democratic proposition that the Opposition have put to the House in the last two days is very simple to state. It is that the only policy that will work in our society is a policy that is accepted. The only policy that will be accepted is one that is fair, and a fair policy requires programmes of social reform extending widely over the field of domestic policies. Working people now want that reform to be carried through by Parliament and not by revolution.
What is the alternative to doing it this way? If we reject voluntarism—which has, as a matter of fact, an even older history than democracy—and social justice, we are driven inevitably to authoritarian solutions. The Industrial Relations Act took away the power of the unions, because trade union democracy
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was not compatible with Government policy. The Housing Finance Act took away the democratic responsibilities of local Labour councillors, because they would not raise the rents of the people they represented. The Pay Board, which is not accountable to the electors—its members have never been elected and are not accountable to Parliament—is another part of this authoritarian structure.
Now the emergency powers, then the three-day working week, then compulsory overtime—for that is what the Government wish the miners to accept—then tonight some speakers, a little ahead of their time, calling for the proscription of political parties that challenge this view. The Prime Minister is moving to 1984 10 years ahead of schedule, and he is doing it with a nightmare of centralised control, under the control not of the Left but of the Right.
I do not believe for a moment that the problems confronting this country are insoluble within the framework of the parliamentary system for which our forefathers fought and won. We do not want a British Stalin or a tinpot Mussolini lecturing us from Lancaster House. The paradox that confronts the House is that in this country today moderate people want radical change. Moderate people want a fair society, when our society is now not fair. They want justice in areas where injustice has been preserved. They want more democracy and not less democracy. They want a sharing of power and an enfranchisement of the community, of industrial workers, of tenants, and of the regions, and not the corporate ideas which are being put before us by the Government.
We cannot hope that a coalition of Ministers and editors, and all those in society who enjoy the power, can any longer expect to lecture working people to make the sacrifices that are required.
To this extent this is the end of an era, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) said. It is not just about the balance of payments, inflation, energy or growth. What are now being questioned are the values of a society which have, in a sense, been tested and found wanting, and whether we can any longer have the House of Commons being told that miners earning £30 a week, or a little more, can be

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described as selfish, greedy blackmailers, and expect the public to believe that.
At this moment the affairs of the country are in the hands of a man who knows so little about those he was elected to serve, and has so little faith in their capacity, save under the pressure of punishment, to rise to the occasion that he misses three important and what should be non-controversial points.
We cannot expect responsibility unless as a House we are prepared to share power. We cannot expect social justice unless as a House we legislate to dispense justice. We cannot save democracy unless we practise democracy. We cannot win the trust of the people of this country unless we show to the people, and those who create its wealth, the trust and respect that they deserve.
9.30 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Walker): There was a sharp contrast between the speeches made by the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn), who closed for the Opposition, and the right hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice), who opened for the Opposition. This was only to be expected, because when the Leader of the Opposition yesterday stressed the importance of appealing to the moderates doubtless he recalled that only a short time ago he called a special meeting of the Shadow Cabinet to try to settle the dispute that had arisen between the moderates and the extremists in his Shadow Cabinet.
It is significant that the right hon. Member for East Ham, North—whose speech I primarily wish to deal with tonight—appealed for moderation. His speech was therefore much more important than was the speech made by the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East.
The Opposition's view throughout the debate may be fairly summarised by saying that they feel that the price of the three-day week, with all its adverse consequences, is too high a price to pay for a failure to compromise with the miners. In fairness, the Leader of the Opposition said that he was not in favour of giving the miners all they asked for. He did not ask for a complete surrender to the miners, but in none of
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the dozens of speeches that have been made by the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East has he implied anything other than that he is totally behind the miners in their claim.
I wish to deal particularly with the allegation made by the right hon. Gentleman about the reasons for the three-day week. It is significant that neither the Leader of the Opposition nor the right hon. Member for East Ham, North argued that a three-day week was not necessary. [Interruption.] If the Opposition do not wish to listen to the reasons for the introduction of the three-day week and are not interested in the prospects thereafter they can do what they are obviously being encouraged to do and try to end the debate in an irresponsible way.
The suggestion has been made that the reason for imposing the three-day week was purely political and was not concerned with the question of the potential breakdown of our whole energy system. I wish to make it clear that it was the view of the Central Electricity Generating Board, the Electricity Council and the Scottish electricity boards that, unless the action was taken of imposing the three-day week and obtaining the 20 per cent. reduction in electricity consumption which this would provide, by the end of January or the beginning of February there would be a total breakdown of our electricity power supply.
To argue, as the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East argued, that the Government should have allowed a situation in which the country was faced by an immediate total breakdown of our basic services, is totally irresponsible. The right hon. Gentleman now produces a totally phoney case concerning oil. He knows full well that the original decision to cut the oil supply was at the behest of those, including most mining Members of this House, who argued that there should be a substantial increase in coal burn. Therefore, the whole basis of the strategy was very much to the interest of the miners. Yet, when I decide to increase the oil burn, the right hon. Gentleman suggests that the oil has not been provided. It has been provided. In December, the delivery of oil to the CEGB and the electricity boards was 91 per cent. of last year's figure. The CEGB could not accept it all. It is a phoney argument to suggest that there

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has been a shortage of oil which has aggravated the situation. In January, the required reduction will take place.
The Government had no desire to introduce the three-day week, it was totally against all the economic policies we had been pursuing. It will have a serious adverse affect upon the potential of our export drive. It came at a time when our policies had resulted in a massive increase in exports and in a very substantial increase in investment. The right hon. Gentleman should know. for example, that the figures published today show that the machine tool orders placed by British industry in the last month for which figures are available reached an all-time record.
Mr. Harold Wilson: What the House knows is that even before the crisis investment had not got up to the figures of 1970 or 1971. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to quote figures, will he arrange to have published the figures of oil stocks in the country, especially at power stations? If he will not, let him say why he cannot, because he is publishing the coal stock figures.
Mr. Walker: The oil stock figures at power stations were published this afternoon. Copies are available in the Vote Office. The right hon. Gentleman should get himself a copy. They will show how bogus were the arguments of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East.
I now turn to the question of future oil supplies. The present situation is that apart from fuel oil, which is basic to the needs of industry, there is a situation——
Mr. Robert Mellish: Why is there a three-day week?
Mr. Walker: It is interesting that every figure which has been published exposes the utter faliacy of the argument of Labour Members. The result of the ineffective and inaccurate exercise of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East on the coal stock figures was that when the figures were published in detail, giving the comparisons year by year, every commentator except the Morning Star accepted that the right hon. Gentleman was wrong. He has created a unique position. He is the one man on the Labour side of British politics who has recently had all his arguments rejected by the
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Daily Mirror and approved by the Morning Star. Perhaps that indicates the degree to which every word he has uttered has encouraged the extremists in the National Union of Mineworkers. In that sphere he has done immense damage.
The right hon. Gentleman quoted me as saying that coal was a major problem regarding the three-day week. The majority of the fuel which power stations must burn is coal. The steel industry is 85 per cent. dependent on coking coal. These are the factors that bring about the unfortunate necessity of a three-day week.
The imports of crude oil for January and February are expected to be about 8 per cent. and 5 per cent. lower than would have been anticipated had there not been an oil crisis. Industry showed quite clearly, with the imposition of overall cuts of 10 per cent. compared with last year's figures, that it was able to cope with the situation and to keep up production to a high level.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman rose——
Mr. Walker: It is the loss of our electricity power that creates the serious situation. It has been mentioned by a number of Labour Members, including the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Varley) last night, that North Sea oil is an important national asset. It seems that the Opposition would nationalise North Sea oil. I believe that that is official Opposition policy. I cannot imagine anything that would slow down the extraction of oil from the North Sea more than nationalisation. That is the Opposition's policy at a time when there is a worldwide shortage of skilled engineers, machinery and oil rigs. I suggest that the creation of a nationalised North Sea oil industry would do nothing other than handicap the possibilities of obtaining relief from that source. It seems that once more the Opposition would aggravate the situation rather than improve it.
Labour Members have constantly talked of the special position of the miners because of the conditions in which they work. The right hon. Member for East Ham, North has sensibly and reasonably argued the special problems and difficulties of the miners. The Labour Party has always been closely associated with the miners, and the majority of miners for most of this century have supported that

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party. But, as the person who has had the responsibility for this industry during the last 12 months, I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider the genuine transformation of the industry and of the miner during the recent period.
When the Coal Industry Act was introduced—which no one can deny is, by any measure, the most important and significant Act for the industry since the nationalisation of coal—it was a positive decision. There was no pressure upon me or my Department from the Labour Party to introduce that Act. That Act made the fundamental decision of reversing the policy advocated in the energy White Paper of 1967—a policy which, in fairness, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East has now stated he considers was totally wrong. He now states that he considers that he was badly advised.
The only thing that one can say about the right hon. Gentleman is that—[Interruption.] He now says that the dozens of pit closures and the tens of thousands of miners who were unemployed during the period of the Labour Party were the results of a mistake and that, on reflection, he regrets having pursued that policy. I accept that—but we are the Government who reversed the policy.
The Act not only reversed the policy of running down the industry. The NUM, as members of it will know, only last April, when it was passed, generously described it as a beneficial Act for the mining industry, and one of which they thoroughly approved. It also provided, for example, an extra £100 million for the redundant miners' scheme, increased the contribution to miners' pensions by £40 million and provided regional grants of up to £210 million. It was a reforming Act of immense importance to the industry's future.
But this is only part of the story. What I find total humbug on the Opposition side of the House is that the right hon. Gentleman now passionately argues how underpaid the miners are compared with other sections of the community. When we took office, the earnings and allowances of face workers amounted to £25 per week, and of surface workers to less than £21·50.
The improvement in six years of Labour Government, having taken
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account of the cost of living, was far less than it has been in three and a half years of Conservative Government. In the six years of Labour Government the earnings of a face worker rose by £4 a week. I trust that when the right hon. Gentleman makes his speeches about the terrible conditions of the miners, the difficulties they experience and the injuries they suffer, he reflects that he imposed on the miners an incomes policy fare more stringent than anything that we are imposing.
At the time he was doing that, miners were still dying in the pits and still suffering from lung diseases. We heard none of this emotion from the right hon. Gentleman then. Whereas in six years he increased their earnings by £4, we have already increased their earnings in three and a half years by £13. The present offer would take this up to £17.
Mr. Heffer: Is the right hon. Gentleman denying the fact that the miners only got their last increase on the basis of industrial action and the Wilberforce arrangements? Would he not agree that the policy of the last Government was fully supported by Conservative Members and the present Prime Minister, who said that pits were not being closed fast enough?
Mr. Walker: The last wage increase given to the miners was done without any industrial dispute at all. It was made last year and agreed immediately. The hon. Gentleman argues that miners do much better and get bigger increases if they resort to industrial action. Presumably what he is saying is that during the period his Government were imposing a statutory incomes policy they should have gone for industrial action against it and he would have welcomed it. What I say to hon. Members opposite is that had a Labour Government been in power when the Coal Industry Act was passed, reversing the decline in the industry, and which had in three and a half years increased the earnings and allowances of face workers by £18 a week and of surface workers by £21 a week, there is not one member from a mining constituency who would not have proclaimed this as a great achievement of a Labour Government.
I was asked about the developments in places such as the Selby seam. When the first encouraging tests in that area were

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made we discussed with the National Coal Board the manner in which that seam could be quickly developed. Further tests have been more encouraging. At the first representations I was told that it would probably be 10 years before such a mine could be in full production. I am pleased to say that since then the proposed methods of extraction have been re-examined and my latest information is that when using drift mining techniques substantial production could be obtained within four or five years.
For the first time for a decade the mining industry has a Government which is willing to support it with major investment. It is a Government that has treated it better over earnings than any of their predecessors. It has a Government who have introduced a major reform in the mining industry.
The essence of the debate of the last two days has been this question of the degree to which one provides an increase for an industry such as this. The Leader of the Opposition has said categorically in this debate that he would not give in to the claim made by the National Union of Mineworkers. What he has said—and I do not criticise him for this—is that he does not consider that it is the duty of the Government to give in to the demand made by the National Union of Mineworkers. [Interruption.] If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to confirm that he would be in favour of giving a 31 per cent. increase to the miners I shall be very surprised. Any responsible Opposition Member knows that it is not possible to give a 31 per cent. increase to the miners. Once one does that, one is led to the question of the degree to which
one should increase the earnings of other workers.
Where it is possible to argue that the Government have perhaps made a mistake is that they were honest enough to arrange phase 3 on the basis of clearly giving the miners a special position. The miners have had the most generous offer that they have ever had. The Labour Party, instead of recognising that fact and recognising that our whole future economic prospect depends upon successfully countering inflation, has endeavoured to exploit this position in a totally irresponsible way. It failed the miner, and it failed him badly. It pursued a policy of running down the mining industry. It now produces all the emotion it can to suggest that nothing is too good for the mining industry.
Opposition Members must recognise that the responsibility of Government is to see that all sections succeed. Indeed, it was the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East who said that trade unionists are all consumers, too. It was the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East who said that they have suffered from the wage-price spiral like everyone else. Advocating an incomes policy, he said that accepting the idea that the public have a legitimate interest to uphold all price changes and wage settlements involves a break with tradition.
We intend to continue our policies against inflation. We intend to continue to treat the miners decently and honourably, and not to have the humbug that predominates on the benches opposite.
Question put. That this House do now adjourn:—
The House divided: Ayes 280, Noes 301.

Division No. 28.]

AYES

19.59p.m.

Abse, Leo

Bishop, E. S.

Clark, David (Colne Valley)

Albu, Austen

Blenkinsop, Arthur

Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

Boardman, H. (Leigh)

Cohen, Stanley

Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

Booth, Albert

Concannon, J. D.

Armstrong, Ernest

Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)

Conlan, Bernard

Ashley, Jack

Bradley, Tom

Corbet, Mrs. Freda

Ashton, Joe

Broughton, Sir Alfred

Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

Atkinson, Norman

Brown, Robert C.(N'c'tle-u-Tyne, W.)

Crawshaw, Richard

Austick, David

Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

Cronin, John

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Buchan, Norman

Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Barnes, Michael

Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

Cunningham, G. (Islington, S. W.)

Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)

Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

Baxter, William

Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

Dalyell, Tarn

Beaney, Alan

Cant, R. B.

Darling, Rt. Hn. George

Beith, A. J.

Carmichael, Nell

Davidson, Arthur

Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

Bennett, James (Glasgow, Brldgeton)

Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

Davies, G. Elted (Rhondda, E.)

Bldwell, Sydney

Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

Davies, Ifor (Gower)

Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Pavitt, Laurie

Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

Deakins, Eric

Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

Pendry, Tom

de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

Perry, Ernest G.

Delargy, Hugh

Judd, Frank

Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

Kaufman, Gerald

Prescott, John

Dempsey, James

Kelley, Richard

Price, William (Rugby)

Doig, Peter

Kerr, Russell

Probert, Arthur

Dormand, J. D.

Kinnock, Neil

Radice, Giles

Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

Lambie, David

Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Lamborn, Harry

Rhodes, Geoffrey

Driberg, Tom

Lamond, James

Richard, Ivor

Duffy, A. E. P.

Latham, Arthur

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Dunn, James A.

Lawson, George

Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)

Dunnett, Jack

Leadbitter, Ted

Robertson, John (Paisley)

Eadie, Alex

Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n&R'dnor)

Edelman, Maurice

Leonard, Dick

Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

Lestor, Miss Joan

Roper, John

Edwards, William (Merioneth)

Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

Rose, Paul b.

Ellis, Tom

Lipton, Marcus

Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

English, Michael

Lomas, Kenneth

Rowlands Ted

Evans, Fred

Loughlin, Charles

Sandelson, Neville

Ewing, Harry

Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

Faulds, Andrew

Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)

Fisher, Mrs. Dorls (B'ham, Ladywood)

McBride, Neil

Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Ueptford)

Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

McCartney, Hugh

Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

MacDonald, Mrs. Margo

Sillars, James

Foot, Michael

McElhone, Frank

Silverman, Julius

Ford, Ben

McGuire, Michael

Skinner, Dennis

Forrester, John

Machin, George

Small, William

Fraser, John (Norwood)

Mackenzie, Gregor

Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

Freeson, Reginald

Mackie, John

Spearing, Nigel

Freud, Clement

Mackintosh, John P.

Spriggs, Leslie

Galpern, Sir Myer

Maclennan, Robert

Stallard, A. W.

Garrett, W. E.

Steel, David

Gilbert Dr. John

McMillan, Tom (Glasgow. C.)

Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

McNamara, J. Kevin

Stonehouse, Rt. Hn John

Golding, John

Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

Stewart Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)

Gourlay, Harry

Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield. E.)

Stoddart, David (Swindon)

Grant, George (Morpeth)

Marks, Kenneth

Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

Marquand, David

Stott, Roger

Griffiths, Eddie (Brightslde)

Marsden, F.

Strang, Gavin

Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

Marshall, Dr. Edmund

Strauss, Rt. Hn G. R.

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

Meacher, Michael

Swain, Thomas

Hamling, William

Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)

Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

Mendelson, John

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Hardy, Peter

Mikardo, Ian

Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Millan, Bruce

Tomney, Frank

Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

Miller, Dr. M. S.

Tope, Graham

Hattersley, Roy

Milne, Edward

Torney, Tom

Hatton, F.

Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Iichen)

Urwin, T. W.

Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

Molloy, William

Varley, Eric G.

Heffer, Eric S.

Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

Wainwright, Edwin

Hilton, W. S.

Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

Waiden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

Horam, John

Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

Wallace, George

Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

Moyle, Roland

Watkins, David

Huckfield, Leslie

Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Weitzman, David

Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

Murray, Ronald King

Wellbeloved, James

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Oakes, Gordon

Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

Ogden, Eric

White, James (Glasgow. Pollok)

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

O'Halloran, Michael

Whitehead, Phillip

Hunter, Adam

O'Malley, Brian

Whitlock, William

Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

Oram, Bert

Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Janner, Greville

Orbach, Maurice

Williams, Alan (Swansea)

Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Orme, Stanley

Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

Jeger, Mrs. Lena

Oswald, Thomas

Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

Oswald, Thomas

Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)

Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

John, Brynmor

Padley, Walter

Woof, Robert

Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

Paget, R. T.

Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull. W.)

Palmer, Arthur

TELLERS FOR THE AYES

Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

Mr. Donald Coleman and

Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

Pardoe, John

Mr. Joseph Harper.

Jones. Barry (Flint. E.)

Parker, John (Dagenham)

NOES

Adley, Robert

Atkins, Humphrey

Bell, Ronald

Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

Awdry, Daniel

Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

Aliason. James (Hemel Hempstead)

Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

Benyon, W.

Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

Berry, Hn. Anthony

Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Bitten, John

Astor. John

Batsford, Brian

Biggs-Davison, John

318

319

Blaker, Peter

Gray, Hamish

Money, Ernie

Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)

Green, Alan

Monks, Mrs. Connie

Body, Richard

Grieve, Percy

Monro, Hector

Boscawen, Hn. Robert

Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

Montgomery, Fergus

Bossom, Sir Clive

Grylis, Michael

More, Jasper

Bowden, Andrew

Gummer, J. Selwyn

Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

Braine, Sir Bernard

Gurden, Harold

Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

Bray, Ronald

Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

Morrison, Charles

Brewis, John

Hall, Sir John (Wycombe)

Mudd, David

Brinton, Sir Tatton

Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

Neave, Airey

Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Nicholls, Sir Harmar

Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

Hannam, John (Exeter)

Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

Bruce-Gardyne, J.

Harison, Brian (Maldon)

Normanton, Tom

Bryan, Sir Paul

Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

Nott, John

Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)

Harvie Anderson, Miss

Onslow, Cranley

Buck, Antony

Haselhurst, Alan

Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

Bullus, Sir Eric

Hastings, Stephen

Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

Burden, F. A.

Havers, Sir Michael

Osborn, John

Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

Hay, John

Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

Campbell, Rt. Hn. G.(Moray & Nairn)

Hayhoe, Barney

Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

Carlisle, Mark

Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

Page, John (Harrow, W.)

Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

Heseltine, Michael

Parkinson, Cecil

Cary, Sir Robert

Hicks, Robert

Peel, Sir John

Channon, Paul

Higgins, Terence L.

Perclval, Ian

Chapman, Sydney

Hiley, Joseph

Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)

Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

Chichester-Clark, R.

Hill, S. James A. (Southampton, Test)

Pike, Miss Mervyn

Churchill, W. S.

Holland, Philip

Pink, R. Bonner

Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

Holt, Miss Mary

Pounder, Rafton

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Hordern, Peter

Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

Cockeram, Eric

Hornby, Richard

Price, David (Eastleigh)

Cooke, Robert

Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia

Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

Coombs, Derek

Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)

Proudfoot, Wilfred

Cooper, A. E.

Howell, David (Guildford)

Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

Cordle, John

Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

Quennell, Miss J. M.

Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick

Hunt, John

Raison, Timothy

Cormack, Patrick

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

Costain, A, P.

Iremonger, T. L.

Rawllnson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

Critchley, Julian

Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

Redmond, Robert

Crouch, David

James, David

Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

Crowder, F. P.

Jenkin, Rt. Hn. Patrick (Woodford)

Rees, Peter (Dover)

Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

Rees-Davies, W. R.

d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

Jessel, Toby

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

d'Avigdor-Goldsmid. Maj.-Gen. Jack

Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

Dean, Paul

Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

Ridsdale, Julian

Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

Jopling, Michael

Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

Digby, Simon Wingfield

Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

Dixon, Piers

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas

Kershaw, Anthony

Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

Kimball, Marcus

Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

Drayson, Burnaby

King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

Rost, Peter

du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

King, Tom (Bridgwater)

Royle Anthony

Dykes, Hugh

Kinsey, J. R.

Russell, Sir Ronald

Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

Kitson, Timothy

St. John-Stevas, Norman

Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Knight, Mrs. Jill

Sainsbury, Timothy

Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

Knox, David

Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

Lamont, Norman

Scott, Nicholas

Emery, Peter

Le Marchant, Spencer

Scott-Hopkins, James

Eyre, Reginald

Lloyd. Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'fleld)

Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

Farr, John

Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

Shelton, William (Clapham)

Fell, Anthony

Longden, Sir Gilbert

Shersby, Michael

Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

Loveridge, John

Simeons, Charles

Fidler, Michael

Luce, R. N.

Sinclair, Sir George

Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)

McAdden, Sir Stephen

Skeet, T. H. H.

Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

MacArthur, Ian

Smith, Dudley (W'wlck & L'mington)

Fletcher, Alexander (Edinburgh, N.)

McCrindle, R. A.

Soref, Harold

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

McLaren, Martin

Speed, Keith

Fookes, Miss Janet

Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

Spence, John

Fortescue, Tim

Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)

Sproat, lain

Foster, Sir John

McNair-Wilson, Michael

Stainton, Keith

Fowler, Norman

McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

Stanbrook, Ivor

Fox, Marcus

Madel, David

Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'flord & stone)

Maginnis, John E.

Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

Fry, Peter

Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

Stokes, John

Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

Mather, Carol

Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

Gardner, Edward

Maude, Angus

Sutcliffe, John

Gibson-Watt, David

Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

Tapsell, Peter

Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

Mawby, Ray

Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow. Cathcart)

Glyn, Dr. Alan

Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Goodhart, Philip

Mills, Peter (Torrington)

Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N. W.)

Goodhew, Victor

Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

Tebbit, Norman

Gorst, John

Mlscampbell, Norman

Temple, John M.

Gower, Raymond

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

Moate, Roger

Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

Wall, Patrick

Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

Trafford, Dr. Anthony

Walters, Dennis

Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

Trew, Peter

Ward, Dame Irene

Worsley, Marcus

Tugendhat, Christopher

Warren, Kenneth

Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

Weatherill, Bernard

Younger, Hn. George

Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Vickers, Dame Joan

Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Waddington, David

Wiggin, Jerry

Mr. Walter Clegg and

Walder, David (Clitheroe)

Wilkinson, John

Mr. Paul Hawkins.

Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

Winterton, Nicholas

Question accordingly negatived,

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That the Consideration of Her Majesty's Message [9th January] may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Prior.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  STATE OF EMERGENCY
  Message from Her Majesty [9th January]—considered.
  Mr. Speaker: The Message from Her Majesty is as follows:
  The Emergency Powers Act 1920, as amended by the Emergency Powers Act 1964, having enacted that if it appears to Her Majesty that there have occurred or are about to occur events of such a nature as to be calculated, by interfering with the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel or light, or with the means of locomotion, to deprive the community, or any substantial portion of the community, of the essentials of life, Her Majesty may, by Proclamation, declare that a state of emergency exists: and Her Majesty having on the 12th day of December 1973 made, in pursuance thereof, a Proclamation declaring that the industrial disputes then affecting, among others, persons employed in the coal mines and on the railways and the reduction of oil supplies reaching Great Britain did, in her opinion, constitute a state of emergency within the meaning of the said Act of 1920 as so amended, which Proclamation does not remain in force for more than one month: and the continuance of the industrial disputes affecting those persons and the continued reduction in those oil supplies having, in Her Majesty's opinion, constituted such a state of emergency as aforesaid:
  Her Majesty has deemed it proper, by Proclamation dated the 9th day of January 1974 and made in pursuance of the said Act of 1920, as so amended, to declare that a state of emergency exists.
  Resolved,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty thanking Her Majesty for Her Most Gracious Message communicating to this House that Her Majesty deems it proper by Proclamation, made in pursuance of the Emergency Powers Act 1920, as amended by the Emergency Powers Act 1964, and dated 9th January 1974, to declare that a state of emergency exists.—[Mr. R. Carr.]
  To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's household.

EMERGENCY POWERS
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the Regulations made by Her Majesty in Council under the Emergency Powers Act 1920 by Order, dated 9th January 1974, a copy of which was laid before this House on 9th January, shall continue in force after the expiration of the period mentioned in section 2(2) of the said Act, subject however to the provisions of section 2(4) thereof.—[Mr. R. Carr.]
10.16 p.m.
Mr. Kevin McNamara: I have two points to raise in relation to the emergency powers which have some bearing on the debate earlier tonight and which are important. They relate in particular to Regulation 17 concerning electricity supply.
Yesterday, at a meeting arranged by my colleagues and myself with leading trade union officials in my city, concern was expressed about the way in which electricity was being apportioned on so many days per week. The officials expressed a preference for electricity to be rationed on a meter system and spread over the whole week rather than for a smaller number of days.
I suggest that the powers in Regulation 17 should be used in this way in order to solve the problems particularly afflicting small firms which do not have their own private generators and which do not use electricity continuously, but only for limited purposes. The trade union officials have spoken to many employers in the area and believe that not only would this be more economical in the use of electricity and keep more people in work, but it would be of great benefit to the country.
There is a firm in my constituency which exports all of its production and referring to its export dates it says:
"We cannot meet these dates on a three-day week and, as our usage of electricity is minimal, lighting, which we can get over by spreading our week over six days, heating, we have oil and are allowed to use our units, but, we must have power to fill our air tanks as we use air tools. We have two compressors, one to give a back up service to the other and, apart from initial usage in the morning, use very little electricity except for topping up our air cylinders."
This is a problem particularly affecting the small firms which use a great deal of labour, much of it skilled, and a minimum amount of electricity for a very few tools. These firms want their electricity supplied over a five-day period and checked by a meter. That would be easy to arrange with the electricity boards which could keep adequate check in the way that they do at the moment.
The proposal would ensure continuity of employment. Our financial and industrial problems will not disappear merely with the ending of the miners' overtime ban. The problems are deep-seated and it seems foolish to throw away our foreign

325
markets by not adopting a more rational and sensible way of rationing electricity.
I urge the Home Secretary in consultation with his colleagues seriously to consider giving firms their ration of electricity spread over a week. This would be a more sensible way of dealing with the problem and would have less socially divisive consequences than the policies currently adopted.
10.20 p.m.
Mr. John Fraser: I shall not discuss these regulations in detail—they are almost identical to two previous sets of regulations put before us—but I wish to refer to comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) in the first debate on regulations of this kind. She pointed out that a continued state of emergency, with power to abrogate both contract and statute law, was inconsistent with parliamentary goverment. It is indicative also of the Government's inability to govern through the normal democratic processes. Probably, it is a tribute to their obstinacy and inflexibility.
I hope that his presentation of the present regulations has reminded the Home Secretary that the chickens which he hatched in one Department have come home to roost in another. Only in 1971, as Secretary of State for Employment, and a declared enemy of a statutory incomes policy, he assured the country that the procedures under the Industrial Relations Bill would rid us of situations such as the present. They would, he said, confer upon him powers to act when there was an interruption of the provision of goods and services through industrial action.
Indeed, the emergency powers which he sought and eventually obtained under the Industrial Relations Act were the subject of tribute by his right hon. and learned Friend, then Solicitor-General. The clause then under discussion, said the right hon. and learned Gentleman,
"gives the Secretary of State additions to the flexibility of his armoury. It increases the room for manoeuvre. It gives him useful additions or alternatives"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th February 1971; Vol. 812, c. 714.]
Little more than two years later, we have regulations presented, partly though not wholly due to industrial disputes, which show that the Government have no flexibility,
326
no willingness to manoeuvre and no useful alternatives.
I turn now to certain aspects of the regulations themselves. I shall not comment in detail on what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), but there are other problems arising out of the regulation of electricity supplies. I urge that the Department of Trade and Industry—or the new Department and electricity boards—should be far more willing to consult small users of electricity in order to achieve a better distribution of supplies.
There are many areas in which the allotted days are Thursday, Friday and Saturday but in which, by custom, there are many firms which work only a five-day week. For such firms working on a Saturday is particularly difficult, for example, when a large proportion of the employees are married women with children who are home from school on Saturday. Some concession has been made for shop users, but there are office and other small users adversely affected which might be helped by a more flexible arrangement with the electricity boards, under licence from the Government.
It is extraordinary that if one telephones the electricity board one is told that it is a matter for the Department of Trade and Industry, but if one telephones the Department one is told that it is a matter for the local electricity board. It is difficult to have any meaningful consultation and discussion with either the board or the Department in an effort to achieve a better distribution of electricity and to avoid the hardship which comes to people who are allotted the use of electricity on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Perhaps I should add that I am a solicitor and I should declare some interest in this matter. It would, perhaps, be wrong if I did not do that, but this representation has been made to me by many constituents and small firms, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will pay some regard to it and pass on these comments.
I come now to Regulation 30. I am grateful that the Secretary of State has made some change from the last set of regulations, taking account of the comments made by my hon. Friend the

327
Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) and by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. We are glad that a change has been made, which I take to mean—and I understand the Secretary of State to intend to mean—that lawful industrial action short of a strike does not constitute sabotage under the terms of the regulation.
Next, Regulation 29. This gives power to requisition property and houses in order to secure essentials for the life of the community. In my borough of Lambeth, we have 14,000 families on the housing list, we have 100 families homeless, and we have 1,650 homes which have been empty for more than six months. I can think of nothing more essential to the life of the community than that people should live with a roof over their heads and should have the basis of a good and secure home.
If it is possible to have a regulation such as this trotted out at the time of an industrial dispute, I hope that the Secretary of State will convey to his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment the view of some of us that there should be a greater degree of urgency in what is almost a permanent state of emergency in the housing sector, and that requisitioning powers such as those conferred by this regulation ought to be, in some parts of the country in which there is a serious emergency in housing, a permanent feature of our statute law.
A third aspect of the regulations arises in regard to Regulation No. 32 which deals with interference with Her Majesty's Forces and others who are performing services essential to the life of the community. I am sure that the Government do not intend to use troops in the present industrial disputes. No doubt the Secretary of State will confirm that. But there is one area in which Her Majesty's Forces are being used for civilian duties in England for the first time in peace time, I think, for about 50 years—at London Airport. In the words of the Daily Mirror, it is
"an ominous step which most defence chiefs wanted to avoid."
I am sure that the Government wanted to avoid it. But the ghastly risk that a civilian airliner might be fired at with a
328
surface-to-air missile at Heathrow is a risk which certainly must be eradicated. No one would forgive a Government who failed to heed that kind of a threat.
However, as the use of troops armed with live ammunition is a very unusual departure from our usual practice and is taking place at the same time as a state of emergency, the Secretary of State should tell the House the nature of the risk which is being dealt with there, for how long that operation is to last and to what extent the use of troops has been made necessary by what is in London a grave shortage of ordinary police officers. Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any part of the emergency regulations which is available in these circumstances or whether the troops who are acting there are acting or are invested with any powers under the Protection of Aircraft Act 1973?
I do not necessarily expect the right hon. Gentleman to answer these questions off the cuff. It would be unfair to demand that, but I should be neglecting my duty if I did not put that kind of question and ask for a statement about a rather unusual departure from practice and clearly a serious risk. It is something about which the House ought to have an explanation and a chance to question the Secretary of State.
10.28 p.m.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Robert Carr): Both hon. Members who have spoken have gone rather wide on these regulations. Let me assure the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser) that Regulation 32 has absolutely no bearing on the matter of Heathrow. Indeed, if he reads the regulation he would see that that was so. Here we are talking about the rôle of any member of Her Majesty's Services in connection with people who are
"charged with the exercise or performance of any power or duty under any of these Regulations."
This has nothing whatever to do with Heathrow. There may be some other occasion when the House will properly wish to ask me to speak about that, and I shall be only too ready to do so. But this is nothing whatever to do with the regulations. As has happened when Parliament is not sitting, I did what I thought was right and made as full a public statement as I could about the matter of time.

329
I note what the hon. Gentleman said about Regulation 29 but I do not believe that he thinks that this regulation has anything to do with the subject that he raised.
Regarding Regulation 30, I was glad that with the help of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General we were able to deal with this very difficult matter, which is very complex legally. I am assured that this puts beyond doubt what was always the intention in the last and all previous sets of regulations, namely, that anyone taking lawful industrial action, including strikes and action short of strike, should not be in any way caught by these regulations. I hope that we have succeeded in that. We have certainly tried to, and I am assured by my hon. and learned Friend that we have in fact done so.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) referred to the use of Regulation 17. He will appreciate that, as Home Secretary, I am responsible for the regulations, but I am not responsible for the way in which my right hon. Friends in various Departments make use of them. The regulation gives power to my right hon. Friends, but I, as Home Secretary, cannot speak on how that power is used. I assure him, and the hon. Member for Norwood, that I will draw my right hon. Friends' attention to what has been said.
I agree strongly with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North, that among the chief sufferers, if not the chief sufferers, from the effects of the coal shortage and the consequential power restrictions are the small firms, not only the owners of those firms but those who work in them. The larger companies, by and large, have a greater capacity to survive a period of crisis. I take the hon. Gentleman's point about how the form of rationing, if it were technically possible, might be of more assistance to small firms, and I will pass that on to my right hon. Friend.
The hon. Member for Norwood started his brief intervention by bringing in the Industrial Relations Act. That is extremely tempting territory for me, but it would not be wise in my own or anybody else's interest for me to be tempted. I cannot help reminding the hon. Gentleman that when his Government, at the
330
beginning of 1969, introduced their Industrial Relations Bill—remarkably similar in many ways to ours—and said that it was essential to the well being of this country and then six months later threw it away, in the next year the number of strikes doubled. Let the hon. Gentleman contemplate that.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Regulations made by Her Majesty in Council under the Emergency Powers Act 1920 by Order, dated 9th January 1974, a copy of which was laid before this House on 9th January, shall continue in force after the expiration of the period mentioned in section 2(2) of the said Act, subject however to the provisions of section 2(4) thereof.

EMERGENCY POWERS
  ADJOURNMENT
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Parkinson.]

HULL (OPERATION EYESORE)
10.33 p.m.
Mr. Kevin McNamara: After the heat of the last few days I hope that we shall have a little water poured on the situation. In this short debate, to which I and my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnston) and Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) attach considerable importance, I hope that there will be a little bending by the Government and a realisation that an error of judgment has been made, so that we may go from this debate satisfied that our pleas are heeded.
The debate arises from "Operation Eyesore", an imaginative scheme introduced by the Government, when they were seeking to reduce their unemployment problems, to have a lot of local works carried out by local authorities. Hull Corporation seized this opportunity and submitted 34 schemes costing £192,528, of which £129,940 was to be found by the Government and the balance by the corporation. Most of this work was carried out by the corporation, and our constituencies are, as a result, much pleasanter places in which to live.
Indeed, I have a photograph, which I frequently show to the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley), of the

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finest gilded equestrian statue of our late Sovereign, King William III, in Great Britain or even, I would guess, in the Six Counties. It was re-gilded as a result of the scheme. The general effect of the scheme in the city has been a considerable success. There were three schemes which were of particular cosmetic importance to the city, not costing a great deal of money. They were the schemes for the cleaning of public buildings, and they would have had a most beneficial effect on the appearance of the city centre and other areas.
The first scheme concerned Holy Trinity Church—the largest, in area, of any parish church in the United Kingdom, a church of cathedral proportions, a beautiful building with a unique history. Holy Trinity was to be cleaned at a final cost of £26,000—£5,500 being supplied by Hull Corporation, £16,500 by the Department of the Environment, and £4,000 by the appeals committee of the church itself, which has worked very hard indeed to raise money to improve the building.
The second group of buildings was in Queen Victoria Square, in the centre of my constituency—indeed, in the centre of the city itself. The buildings to be cleaned included the art gallery, the city hall, very find old docks buildings, and a statue of our late noble Sovereign, Queen Victoria. The total expenditure involved would have been £8,975, of which £4,232 would have been found by the Government.
The third building to have been cleaned was part of the Paragon Station, at a cost of £4,174, of which £1,044 would have been found by the corporation. All these schemes were presented well in time and were approved by the Department.
Work commenced first upon Holy Trinity Church, but then the trouble started. Because of the beneficial winter there had been a low rainfall. The spring, too, had been kind, and a serious water shortage developed in Hull, which meant that when the cleaning of Holy Trinity had barely started a ban was put upon the use of hose pipes. By this time, only the west elevation and most of the south elevation of the church had been cleaned. The remaining walls had still to be done.
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It is particularly important that these walls should be cleaned, because the schemes for redevelopment in the area envisage the new buildings, in white stone, blending with the church, and the church will look an eyesore if it stands among them looking half unwashed. As the Hull Daily Mail said, Operation Eyesore looked like turning into "operation washout".
The Government were aware of the situation. On 24th April last, the corporation wrote to the Secretary of State explaining the difficulty. In May, he made a statement extending the period in which schemes under Operation Eyesore could be concluded, in view of the difficulties which local authorities had had, but none of them had the peculiar and unique difficulties which we in Hull had had due to the water shortage.
Again, in July, the Corporation, realising that the position was still serious, wrote to the Secretary of State explaining the problem, and it wrote again after the expiry of the whole of the scheme in October. It was some time before we got a reply.
The position is, therefore, that the principal church of the city is still only half washed. All the other main public buildings are unwashed.
On Friday 12th October the ban on the use of water was lifted. I have pursued the matter in correspondence and by Questions in the House. I have talked about the matter with the Secretary of State. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has appreciated the anomaly that the water shortage created and the difficult position in which Hull Corporation and the church authorities are placed. He has had his attention drawn to the problem by the Archbishop of York. Special problems are raised for the church authorities. They have to raise the money to complete the work if they do not receive it from the Government. We now know that because of the financial situation money will not be as readily forthcoming as it has been in the past for church restoration appeals. The money which the church authorities have already raised—or most of it—is covenanted money which comes in yearly as income. The authorities do not receive that money in a lump sum ; it is normally spent as and when it comes in.

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I felt that the Secretary of State's reply of 14th November left a little hope. He said that he could allow grant only for work done before 10th May 1973. Only one of the projects had been started by that day. I presume he meant that it might be possible to get money for Holy Trinity. I do not know whether that is so, but it seems that it is a scheme which came into being as a result of Government initiative. The schemes were put up and the Government approved them. The money was voted and allocated by the corporation, the Government and the church authorities. That money is already in existence.
There was then a unique water shortage in Hull. It was without precedent in the rest of the country. The Secretary of State said in a reply to me that it was a unique situation. Surely this is a situation which unites all the Members for Hull and the hon. Member for Haltem-price (Mr. Wall) in asking the Government for assistance. The money has been voted. The workmen are available. The work has to be completed. We have done everything possible. Surely on this occasion the Government can say, "Go ahead, and we will find the money."
10.44 p.m.
Mr. James Johnson: I am glad to speak in the short time available, because I believe, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), whom we should all thank for initiating the debate, that Hull has had a shabby deal. The claim and the events of the past year are unique. I think that my colleagues and I have been shrugged off by the Secretary of State.
My hon. Friend mentioned the Archbishop of York. I have a confession to make: I am an old choir boy of the Anglican Church, and so I have a sentimental attachment to it. I have often been in the church, and I am one of the Members for the city. A clear outline of the situation has been given and there is little need for me or anyone else to give statistics—we should avoid tedious repetition. However, there is no doubt that the buildings, especially the church, are part of our civic heritage.
Hull is an old and dignified city. Its charter goes back to 1295. We have a fair which is older than the Goose Fair
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in Nottingham. The buildings are fine and they should be cleaned up, especially in view of past promises.
I have quite a file about this matter, but I shall not use it. I came into the matter some time ago when some people wrote to me, not least the chairman of the appeal committee, Sir Robert Payne. Yorkshire, especially the east of the county, has fine Norman churches. As well as York Minster, there is Beverley Minster and Selby Abbey. Our civic church is considered to be in the same category, although it is parish church.
The Committee got a good deal of the money towards the target. The church is now partly clean and partly covered still with the dirt and grime of centuries. It is very unsightly to those of us who pass it, or go inside. The cost of the job is about £19,000. I and my colleagues and the other people involved, who come from a wide range of classes, urge the Minister to look on the church as a special case. It is unique because of our local climatic conditions and the value of the city. It is something that the Minister should value personally.
I know that we have the Secretary of State's No. 2 here and I do not know how far he can speak for his right hon. and learned Friend. Not only did I write to him, as did my colleagues, but I saw him personally, and I have since had nothing but silence for weeks. I sent him a letter this week, and then got a telephone call today mentioning this debate and saying, "You may be interested." Of course we are deeply interested. There is some slight discourtesy here—how slight the Minister will have to judge.
I urge the Minister to give this matter sympathetic consideration.
10.58 p.m.
Mr, Patrick Wall: This is clearly a matter chiefly for Hull Members, but I should like to support the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), who put the case clearly. I have been in correspondence with the Minister on this matter for the past eight weeks, as have other hon. Members. I agree that this is a special case and would not create a precedent, so there would be no danger if the Minister made a concession for this church.

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I fully support the views of my colleagues from the city of Kingston upon Hull. Like other people in the surrounding area, the people of Haltemprice take a great interest in this old church. I hope that the Minister will consider this matter sympathically.
10.59 p.m.
The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): Hon. Members concerned have presented this case as special and unique. In that respect, both the Secretary of State and I have great sympathy with them. "Operation Eyesore" was introduce as long ago as February 1972. We call it that, but its proper name was the Special Environmental Assistance Scheme, and it had two aims.
The first was to provide employment. The second and more important from our point of view, was the aim of improving the environment. It was a tremendous success. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) said that it was a considerable success in Hull. I agree that it was a tremendous success in Hull. It was introduced on a short-term basis so that it was limited to the 16 to 17 months from February 1972 to June 1973. It was announced in February 1972 and local authorities were called upon by letters from regional offices to consider what might be done to create more employment by carrying out minor schemes of environmental improvement.
It was pointed out that grants similar to the derelict land grant would be awarded if local authorities applied for them. The grants would apply to work carried out before 30th June 1973 in development, intermediate and derelict land clearance areas. The rate of grant would be the same as is applicable to works for the reclamation of derelict land, that is, there would be a Government grant in intermediate areas such as Hull of 75 per cent. of the cost of the scheme for schemes completed by 30th June 1973. We estimated then that we would spend—local and central government—about £10 million. In fact, £35 million worth of schemes fell within that period and the total was over £36 million for England by the end of the extended period.
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The period for completion was extended by an announcement by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on 10th May 1973. It was extended to 30th September 1973. As a quid pro quo for the extension, my right hon. and learned Friend said that he would approve no further projects after that announcement and that projects would have to be completed by 30th September 1973 to rank for grant. Any project in Hull, to rank for the 75 per cent. grant, had to have an approval given on or before 10th May 1973 and be completed by 30th September 1973.
I said that "Operation Eyesore" was a tremendous success and it was. In the Yorkshire and Humberside region there were 3,800 projects completed worth £8 million. That was two-ninths of the total for England in that region alone. Hull had over 40 schemes completed, totalling £145,000-plus. Grant was paid on those schemes. Then Hull suffered the misfortune which has been referred to.
Three of the schemes were for cleaning up buildings. One was the Holy Trinity Church. Perhaps I may give the actual figures, because I do not think that they have been given accurately. The whole cost would have been £28,200. There was a contribution from the parochial church council of £4,000. The amount ranking for percentage grant would have been £24,200, which makes the 75 per cent. grant £18,150. That scheme was approved in February 1973.
It is interesting to note that the application was made on 12th February and was granted on 14th February. That was pretty rapid work by my Department and I pat my officials on the back for approving these schemes so rapidly so that those concerned could get on with the work. The Queen Victoria Square scheme was approved a little later and the Paragon Railway scheme a little later, both in about March 1973. The work on Holy Trinity Church started in March and then, unfortunately, there came the ban on the use of water. That ban came into force on 16th May 1973 when about £6,000 worth of work had been done to the church.
The ban was not lifted until after the extended period, after 30th September 1973. Incidentally, I should not like the House to think that that ban was imposed by the Government. The ban was in

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fact imposed by the Hull Corporation, which is the water authority. I do not say that it was wrong in doing so—it was probably quite right—but carrying out the work and the unfortunate ban on the use of water for cleaning buildings was the corporation's responsibility.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North started his speech by talking about a mistake or error of judgment by the Secretary of State. There is no question of a mistake or an error of judgment here. There had to be a limit to this scheme, and where one has to put a limit to grant-aided schemes, there is always someone who will fall on the wrong side of the line. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson) said that he had been shuffled off by the Secretary of State and that there was some matter of discourtesy. I do not think that he could say that with sincerity and honesty. The Secretary of State has been extremely sympathetic, personally, in all discussions about this matter and it may be that the delay in replying was caused by his attempt to find some solution to meet the demands of the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. James Johnson: The right hon. Gentleman knows that I am not the type to behave in the fashion that he has suggested: we have been long enough in the House for the right hon. Gentleman to know that. It is a fact that I not only sent a letter seven weeks ago, but that the Secretary of State also spoke to me. I was then told that I would get a letter ; the letter did not come.
Mr. Page: As I say, this is a difficult matter, and it has been one to which the Secretary of State and I have tried to find a solution. When the request was first made for payment, I looked at the papers carefully to see whether there was any way of getting over the limit set to this grant-aided scheme. Because of the popularity of Operation Eyesore, there were many projects which local authorities wished to get into the programme but which, on a time basis, just failed to qualify. It happened that, as far as I could discover, there was no other scheme to which these circumstances applied. Work had been started and had been stopped by a ban on the use of water
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for cleaning buildings, and therefore completion had been impossible. I am dealing with the case only where the work had been started. I do not think that I can possibly hold out any prospect of a concession in the two cases where work has not yet been started.
With regard to Holy Trinity Church, we have looked at the case extremely sympathetically. Up to the time of the ban £6,000-odd had been expended. The Department had promised in September—this was before the time had run out—to pay £4,359, subject to the completion of the whole project by 30th September. When I came to look at that, I thought that it was reasonable to waive that condition and to leave that £4,359 there as paid. But that was as far as I felt I could possibly go in advising my right hon. and learned Friend to concede in this case.
One cannot help but be sympathetic in a unique case such as this, particularly in the case of a church of this kind. I was sympathetic to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West when he said that he was a choir boy in the church—I earned my education as a choir boy, and so I sympathise. But I think that we have gone as far as possible in the payment for the work which has been done up to the deadline. Strictly taking the rules as stated when the announcement was made about the extension of time, we ought not to have paid anything unless the scheme had been wholly completed.
It seemed reasonable, looking at the facts of the case, to allow the payment that had been promised to be made in September. But if we went further it would be difficult to stop the floodgates opening for so many other schemes which local authorities had been anxious to get in within the time and just failed to qualify.
I can only express sympathy and hope that the payment, or at least part of it—quite a substantial sum of £4,359—will be some satisfaction.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at Eleven o'clock till Tuesday next, pursuant to the Resolution of the House yesterday.

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark.

THE NATIONAL ECONOMY AND INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES
2.36 p.m.
Debate resumed on the Motion moved yesterday by the Lord Aberdare (on behalf of the Lord Windlesham); namely, That this House takes note of the energy situation, the continuing industrial disputes in the coal industry and on the railways, the introduction of a three-day working week in industry, and their effect on the national economy.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR ENERGY (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, I think that the first thing I should do is to apologise to your Lord-ships for not having been in the House yesterday for longer than the two opening speeches, and for the fact that when the noble Lord opposite sits down it will, be necessary for me once again to miss a great deal of the debate, I hope your Lordships will understand this and acquit me of any discourtesy. To start a new Department concerned with energy at this particular time means a great deal of work, and I hope that your Lordships will agree that my priority should be in getting the new Department of Energy going. On every other occasion, I realise only too well, my first priority is your Lordships' House. I have, however, read most of yesterday's debate, and of course will read what speeches I miss to-day, and I am very conscious that as Minister in charge of the new Department it is my duty to keep your Lordships informed of what is happening. I shall certainly try to do that and be only too ready at any time to deal with any queries or suggestions that your Lordships may have. Secondly, I should like to thank those of your Lordships who were good enough to wish me well, and in particular the Leader of the Opposition. I certainly
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need those good wishes, for I do not believe that the task which has been given me is an easy one. But I am lucky to have been given such an excellent team of Ministers in another place.
My Lords, I have as of now been Secretary of State for Energy for under two days. It would be silly of me to pretend that I could conceivably have mastered the details of the whole energy problem of this country or indeed at the moment have more than a superficial idea of the problems that confront my colleagues and myself. Nevertheless, I think that your Lordships will expect me to say something about the present emergency and to make some fairly general remarks about the future energy problems of this country.
The problems are, of course, both immediate and long-term, and we discussed the immediate problems yesterday. Immediately, the nation's prosperity and stability are in hazard principally because of the action of the miners. In the long term we, like nearly all the developed countries of the West, face a challenge on a scale not previously envisaged, not only to find the energy resources we need to maintain the economic growth on which our hopes depend, but also to pay for them. But we, more than all but a very few other countries, have an immensely favoured position beyond the next few transitional years. Within a reasonable time-scale, on technology largely known and understood, from resources we know we have for the getting, we can meet the great bulk of our energy requirements ourselves—from a revitalised coal industry, building on the present industry and on the new reserves in Yorkshire; from the North Sea oil and gas, and from our forward position in nuclear power.
Immediately, our position is grim and forbidding. I do not think that anyone now believes that the electricity restrictions were introduced for political reasons and not because they were strictly necessary for operational reasons. The arithmetic set out by my noble friend Lord Aberdare yesterday shows conclusively that the Government were absolutely justified in bringing in the December 13 restrictions designed to achieve the further 20 per cent, saving, and having

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reached this conclusion it was necessary to act, and act at once. Delay would have meant that the required level of restrictions had to be still greater to achieve the saving in fuel that we needed. On the same day that the decision of the N.U.M. Executive to maintain the overtime ban was made the further restrictions were announced by the Prime Minister.
There has been much concern, and rightly, about the industrial consequences of the restrictions we had to impose, and I acknowledge that it was a pity that the vital need for speed removed the possibility of advance consultations with industry about their form. But to achieve the kind of savings that were necessary, the Government had to find reductions in consumption from industry and commerce as well as from domestic consumers. I do not rule out the possibility of making some changes in the present system. We are exploring possible ways of reducing difficulties caused by the present restrictions without whittling away the fuel savings which they achieve. Indeed, I read the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bowden, yesterday. Certainly we will take into consideration what he had to say; and I think he is going to write to me about some further ideas he has. The evidence of an open mind are the concessions to the hairdressing trade and the wool textile industry announced last night. But for the present I do not think it would be wise to make any change, not least because we are still not achieving the level of savings at which we are aiming.
The target at which we are aiming is to save 25 per cent. in all compared with the normal demand, allowing for the season and the state of the weather. In the week ending December 23, the first full week after the three-day restriction Order, the total savings were 17 per cent. These included savings from the earlier restrictions on lighting and heating. The following week, ending on December 30, the savings were 20 per cent., and in the week ending January 6 they were 21 per cent. So we have been, so far, on a rising trend. But we are still below our overall target, and there really is no cause for complacency. If we are going to avoid the dislocation which rota cuts would entail,
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we must save even more than we have saved so far. This is the governing factor in our consideration of proposals for different ways of saving electricity and of requests for exemption from the terms of the restrictions for reasons which, taken on their own, are often very convincing.
The Government are keeping a very close watch on the level of the savings achieved, and I must warn the House that we may yet have to take measures to increase the severity of the restrictions now in force. This could be avoided if consumers—and in particular domestic consumers—saved more than they are doing. It is very easy to start off with good intentions and remember things, but very often, after a time, one tends to forget. I appeal to all consumers to make an even bigger effort than they have been making so far. We must all, in factory and office, but above all at home, do our utmost to reduce consumption to the minimum. One might say that the message to every electricity consumer is, "Switch off some-thing." In considering requests for exemption from the terms of the Order, the Government have no choice but to take a tough line. My Lords, I have heard suggestions in some quarters that there are ways of getting around the restrictions and using more electricity than is the intention of the Order. I appeal to those who may be tempted to search for loopholes to use their ingenuity instead to find ways of maximising their production without the use of extra electricity. Selfish action by a minority, eroding the savings that we are achieving can lead only to the need for further restrictions which must increase the hardships and the difficulties for all of us.
The miners' overtime ban has also caused a severe fall in coking coal supplies to the steel industry, and the need to conserve stocks to protect the coke ovens from damage has meant reducing steel production to about one half. The consequences of this for industry at large are potentially very severe. I should perhaps at this point add a note on the immediate supply position for oil. The prospect is more hopeful than seemed likely a couple of months ago. The decision of the Arab producers in Kuwait on Christmas Day to restore their production in part is welcome, although the effect on our oil imports, of both crude and products, remains to be seen. We have to

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see what supplies actually arrive. Mean-while, there can be no relaxation of our efforts to maintain strict economy. I do not at present see a need to introduce petrol or Derv rationing, provided that users go on economising as much as possible. Overall, our stock of oil and oil products remains adequate, but for fuel oil, in particular, there is no room whatsoever for complacency. Of course the fuel oil position has its own threatening implications for the electricity situation, which I have already described.
What we really need now (and your Lordships spent most of yesterday discussing this), is an end of the root cause—the overtime ban by the miners. Perhaps the House will expect me to say a few words about this, although it will not be very much because so much has been spoken and the Government's position is very well known, and I have no doubt that my noble friend the Leader of the House will speak on this subject before the end of the debate.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves this point I wonder whether he can say a word about the supplies of natural gas—because it is possible at fairly short notice to convert boiler systems based on fuel oil to natural gas. Would consumers be wise to do this as a means of saving fuel oil, and can the Government guarantee that if they did the supplies of natural gas would be available?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I was proposing to say a word later about natural gas in the future, but I will look into that point and let the noble Lord know and see that an announcement is made.
Having drawn up our proposals about Stage 3, and having got the approval of Parliament for them, what we are saying to-day is that they should apply to every-one, and that it is our job as a Government to see that they do. I do not think that that is pig-headed; I think that is fair. I am reinforced in my view by the knowledge that about 4 million workers have already reached settlements within Stage 3. The average of these settlements is about 9 per cent., against the total of 16 per cent. offered to the miners. The miners are important—we all know that—and that is the reason why they
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have been offered more. But there are other vital groups among those who have settled under Stage 3. There are the local authority manual workers: are they not important? And the hospital workers: are they not important? There are the farm workers, who produce over half of the food that we eat in this country: are they not important? People argue that miners do a tremendously important job—dangerous, demanding, dirty, and increasingly crucial to our economic future—and that is absolutely true, and I totally accept it. But in doing so we should try not to ignore the valuable jobs that are done by other people who have settled for Phase 3 of the Government's policy.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, the noble Lord is talking about an increase of 16 per cent. but that is absolutely untrue. Only 14,000 out of 274,000 would get 13 per cent., because of their productivity agreements, but all the rest would get 6, 7 or 8 per cent. All this talk about 16 per cent. is just nonsense.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I was coming on to say a little about that, because the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, asked me a question. But I shall not say very much, because this subject is extremely complicated and it would take too long to go into detail. The miners have been badly paid in the past and nobody denies that they fell behind very badly in the 1960s. But the Wilberforce settlement pushed them back up the table. Now they are being offered a settlement which would restore the position that they lost after Wilberforce, precisely because that settlement was the signal for a series of inflationary settlements which followed almost immediately afterwards. Their position would be restored under the present Coal Board offer. What is more, that position would be protected, because with Phase 3 in existence there could be no leapfrogging and all the miners would be substantially better off.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Lord said that Wilberforce put the miners back up the league table, and that the present offer would put them back into the post-Wilberforce position. Can he say how far from the top of the league this would leave them?
LORD CARRINGTON: No, my Lords. I am afraid that I cannot do that without

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notice. But my argument is that the Wilberforce settlement was accepted by the miners and was recognised as being generous. It restored them to the position that they wanted, and this offer would do precisely the same. I see from the Coal Board News that as a result of the pay offer—this is my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Blyton—a quarter of all mineworkers would get at least £6·30 a week more, half of all mineworkers would get at least £3·30 a week more, and only 15 per cent. would get nothing more than the basic pay increases. All these figures exclude the further 3½ per cent. efficiency bonus for production which is available under Phase 3.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, asked yesterday whether I could say specifically what the offer means in terms of the various grades in the mining industry. That is not a very easy task to accomplish in a few words, for the pay of any individual depends upon his pattern of working. But the National Coal Board has published quite a large number of figures which illustrate the position and I will see that the noble Lord receives a copy of them.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, will the noble Lord undertake, perhaps by Written Answer, to give us full figures, because my information is very much at variance with that which the noble Lord has given. According to my figures, only 25 per cent. of the entire force will get £6 a week more, although the noble Lord has attributed that increase to a much larger number. If we could have these figures it would make the position much more clear.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think I gave the same figure. But of course I am prepared to do what the noble Lord has asked, and I will see that the figures are circulated in answer to a Question for Written Answer. The efforts made by the Secretary of State for Employment yesterday showed that the Government are not being inflexible nor, I assure your Lordships, are they spoiling for a showdown. We will do all we can to bring about a settlement.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I was with the miners' leaders last night, and they considered yesterday afternoon's meeting with the Secretary of State for Employment a waste of time?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am very sorry to hear that, because I was talking to the Secretary of State for Employment earlier today and he did not feel that the meeting was a waste of time. He felt that what he had to say had been received by the miners and he was very interested in what the miners had to say. I should have thought there was a great deal to be said for the two sides to be talking, rather than adopting the sort of attitude which it seems to me the noble Lord is adopting. Once the miners return to work, in an industry whose prospects are now better than they have been for a couple of decades, if they grasp the opportunity we shall return to some degree of normality, but nevertheless we face a difficult few years of transition.
I should like to say this to the noble Lord, Lord Blyton. Nobody is more anxious than I am in my new job to meet the National Union of Mineworkers and to talk about the future, because there is a very great future for the coal industry of this country. Nevertheless, we shall still be largely, though decreasingly, dependent on oil imported from abroad at crude oil prices several times what they were last autumn. The posted price for Arab oil on October 1 was a little over three dollars a barrel. By October 16 it was just over five dollars a barrel and the effect already was to add over £400 million to our import bill. By January 1. three months later, the price was 11½ dollars a barrel—almost quadrupled in three months. It is too early to say with any precision what effect this latest increase will have on our import bill, but it will clearly be very large indeed.
It does not take any great knowledge of economics to show that this increase in the cost of one of the materials vital to our whole way of living means that we must either increase our exports to pay for it, or accept a very real decrease in our standard of living. One thing we cannot do is to go on first taking more and more out of the economy to pay for ourselves. It is a process of adjustment to high cost energy that we shall be sharing with our European partners and with other oil consumers across the world. Our industrial patterns will have to change. We shall have to pay increasing attention to fuel economy, and this will certainly be an important aspect

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of my Department's work. We shall need to export a great deal more to pay for our imports. I do not think that learning to live with the situation will be easy, but there are significant ways in which we are better off than many other Industrialised countries, and better off to a degree which, as your Lordships, will recollect, would have been unimaginable 10 years ago. I have already touched on them, but I should like to deal with them in a little more detail.
First, there is the coal industry, larger than the coal industries of the whole of Western Europe put together. No Government have done as much as we have done to recognise the role which the coal industry can play in supplying the country's future energy needs. The Coal Industry Act provided sums which were large by any standard to check its rundown—£275 million for capital reconstruction, £175 million for writing off the N.C.B.'s deficit, and £695 million in further grants over the next five years. The N.C.B.'s exploration programme has been stepped up. The Board have recently prepared proposals for further investment in production, including development of the great new field discovered near Selby. I hope to begin discussing their proposals with the Board very soon. Clearly there is an immense opportunity for the coal industry and for everyone in it.
Secondly, there is North Sea oil, a major national asset whose importance and value increases almost daily. The policy of the Government has been one of rapid exploitation, and a great deal has already been achieved since the first oilfield was declared commercial only two years ago. The Government have estimated that production in 1980 will be yielding 70 million to 100 million tons, equivalent at the moment to two-thirds or more of our oil needs. But that estimate is currently being revised in the light of last season's drilling results and of a revised assessment of our future oil needs.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, can the noble Lord say that when North Sea oil becomes available we, as a national State, shall have absolute control over it, or whether the Common Market will have some say in both its price and its distribution?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, these are some of the matters that I am examining rather urgently, but I think I ought to make it abundantly plain that North Sea oil belongs to us—and that is that.
LORD AVEBURY: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again, but he should make an exception for the Ekofisk oil, which was the first to come ashore in the United Kingdom and which, as he will recall, belongs to Norway; and we have signed a treaty with the Norwegians which allows them to take it back there.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords. I meant that bit of the North Sea which belongs to us. I thought that was obvious. Of course, my Lords, 1980 seems a long way off, and we want the oil badly. I think it would be wrong to underestimate the very real technological challenges which are being faced, but we intend to get oil out of the North Sea in quantity as fast as possible, and certainly that is my top priority.
Thirdly, there is North Sea gas, about which the noble Lord opposite spoke. Here, unlike oil, we are already benefiting. Ninety per cent. of our gas already comes from the North Sea. Our reserves are being developed more rapidly than has been achieved in substantial off-shore fields elsewhere. The British Gas Corporation have reached agreement for the purchase of gas from the large Frigg field (subject in part to Norwegian Parliamentary consent) and have begun negotiations for associated gas from oilfields in the Northern waters. There are good hopes that further supplies of associated gas will be found, and exploration now beginning in the Celtic Sea may add to our resources. All these developments are being actively encouraged by the Government. They should lead to our natural gas supplies being much more than doubled by 1980.
Fourthly, there is nuclear power. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Gore-Booth, was rather worried that nuclear power came fourth in my statement the other day. Let me assure him that that is not because I consider it the least important. This of course offers immense possibilities, and in the long term seems likely to be the main source of energy.

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We have a great knowledge and experience. We also have the industrial capacity. The setting up of the National Nuclear Corporation will provide a single strong design and construction organisation, and a strong base for development. The Nuclear Power Advisory Board is currently preparing advice for Government on which reactor system should be chosen for our next nuclear plant orders. I will take the chair at its future meetings. The Board has already done a great deal of work. As your Lordships know, reactor choice is very complicated and difficult and highly technical, and I shall of course, as I hope your Lordships will realise, approach this with an entirely open mind. But I will ensure that the changes of responsibilities do not hold up our timetable for the important decisions which have to be made. As the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has made clear in another place, the Government intend to reach a decision early this year.
My Lords, in all these four areas we have great potential. They offer a diversity of sources of supply; an increase in security; a defence against very high prices by overseas suppliers; and, overall, an immense improvement in our position so that we can, if necessary, achieve something approaching self-sufficiency by 1980—or, if humanly possible, earlier than that. Speed is the key. In all these areas I shall be looking for action that can speed up our plans and our results. Of course, at the same time we shall be looking at the contributions which other, rather more exotic sources, such as tidal barrages, might make to our total energy resources; and clearly the changing economics of the situation will encourage and make feasible the development of other sources, some of them already well known, some of them perhaps still to be found.
My Lords, so much for production. But as consumers, too, we must learn to live with the fact that energy may be scarce and expensive. If its efficient and economic use is important today, it is hardly less important in the long run. I hope that every consumer has woken up to this fact; and I noticed when I was talking to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, yesterday that he said that he had found it remarkable how much we could save
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in industry if you really tried. Great changes are needed, and there really is scope for savings. British industry will be failing in its response if every fuel technologist and every manufacturer of fuel-saving equipment is not run off his feet in the next two or three years.
There is also a role for the Government. We were already considering, be-for the present crisis, what further action we could take. Although Britain is relatively favourably placed, we do not intend to go it alone. International collaboration is needed—and I must admit that so far there has been more discussion than effective action. The rapidly developing situation has moved ahead of any practical advances in international co-operation, but I think there is now a much greater recognition among both consumers and producers that cooperation really must come about if we are to solve the problems which have arisen. We need to take advantage of this mood before a new twist in the situation catches the international community once again unprepared, and certainly that is why the Government have very warmly welcomed the imaginative initiative by President Nixon and by Dr. Kissinger. We shall be ready to join very early discussions with other consumer Governments and with the oil producers to see whether jointly we can find a solution to the problems of oil supply and price, and ways in which we can collaborate in developing alternative sources of energy.
My Lords, the new Department of Energy will not be without its problems and its challenges. Immediately, we can hardly escape preoccupation with the electricity restrictions and the oil supply situation, but we have very much in the forefront of our minds the need to get oil out of the North Sea as fast and as much as possible. We shall also be active in seeking to develop international co-operation in European energy. We shall be active in fuel economy; in developing our coal resources to the maximum; in expanding our nuclear power resources, and in anything that holds out a prospect of secure energy resources, their efficient use and the maximum advantage to the British economy. My Lords, I hope that we shall be a Department of Energy by name and by nature.
3.9 p.m.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I would wish to start off by saying to the Secretary of State for Energy that he has our very best wishes for success in the tremendous task which has been placed before him. That is not a matter of politics, because if he fails we all fail. I therefore hope that from what was said in the debate yesterday and from what will be said to-day he will seek to extract as much as is possible that can be regarded as helpful to him in his task; because while it may perhaps be against the political interests of this side of the House that he should succeed, it is in the interests of every individual that the country should not fail—and if he fails, so long as this Government remain, then we shall all fail with him. So for that reason he has our very best wishes for success.
The noble Lord has made a very wide-ranging speech, as the House would expect in his first statement in his new position of responsibility, and he will forgive me if I do not follow him in that wide field. In my remarks I intend to concentrate on the short-term position, and that must inevitably mean concentrating on the coal position. But before I come on to comment on what the noble Lord has said, I should like to make some reference to yesterday's debate and to the reasons why I am speaking in this debate to-day.
May I first say that, most unusually for me, I am doing something that I intensely dislike doing? I have written down most of what I want to say, and if it turns out a little stilted, the House will forgive me because that is not my normal way of making a speech. But when I was asked to take part in this debate I had mixed feelings. I had hopes of the debate but also I had fears of it. My fears were that there would be merely reiteration of statements already made, a firm adherence to stances taken up at the beginning; or, even worse, the making of speeches which might aggrevate the situation. My hopes were that something constructive would come out of the debate. So far, my Lords, my best hopes have not been realised, but I am grateful to be able to say that my worst fears have not been realised; because I think that of only one speech made yesterday could I say that anything was said that might aggravate the situation.
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If I may first refer to what I would regard from this side of the House as constructive speeches—I am referring to speeches made from the Government Benches—I read with very great interest, because I did not hear the speeches, the suggestions made by the noble Viscount. Lord Caldecote, and the noble Lord, Lord Harvey of Prestbury. If only something of that kind had been in the speech made yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, how much more hopeful the prospect would be! The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has been told often enough how highly we on this side of the House regard him. Those are not mere empty words. We do have a very high regard for the noble Lord, and what I am saying now is not offered as any personal criticism of him. May I say that if there was anything wrong I think it was the brief from which he was reading rather than the noble Lord himself? He started off with an assumption that Phase 3 was so absolutely right that any departure from it was unthinkable. He went on to recite all the disasters which must inevitably flow from it. That, of course, is not how he described the consequences but certainly it is how they appeared to me. I was grateful that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, was the only one of the kind which I had feared. I hope that at least one part of it does not represent Government thinking, even though the noble Lord is a former Chancellor of the Exchequer in a Conservative Government. When the noble Lord equated the attitude of the miners with that of terrorist bomb-placers he did no service either to this House or to this country. It can help nobody to utter such a slander on the trade union movement.
My Lords, I come now to what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. He has given us a very thoughtful, wide-ranging description of the way in which he sees his job. He apologised for the fact that he would be leaving the debate immediately after I finish speaking. We can well understand the reason for that. I had a brief conversation with the noble Lord in the corridor yesterday afternoon. I think that it would not be quite true to say that he did not have a chair on which to place his bottom, but I gathered that he did not have an office in which to place a chair; so

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perhaps it is reasonable that this afternoon he should be finding a place from which his new Department may operate, and no apology is necessary from the noble Lord on that score.
One thing I found a little surprising, and I hope that to-morrow, when he reads what he has said, the noble Lord will perhaps feel that he went a little further than he ought to have done. He said it would be foolish to pretend that he knew all about the problem and that he had only a superficial idea of it. I am surprised that at this stage in the crisis any member of the Cabinet should be confessing to only a superficial knowledge of the problem. Perhaps that is why the Government are so adamant about not budging from Phase 3, if even the new Secretary of State for Energy has only a superficial knowledge.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, is being a little less than fair. I was referring to the energy problems of the future. If the noble Lord is so wise about the energy problems of the future and all other subjects with which he may have to deal for the rest of his life he is "a better man than I am, Gunga Din."
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the noble Lord may well be right in what he says, but if he reads what he said, I think he will see that it was not apparent at that point that his reference to superficial knowledge related to the future. As a matter of fact, in relation to the future, it is a good man, even a Gunga Din, who can have a superficial knowledge of the future. I have no knowledge of the future, I know only of what has taken place and what exists at present. I do not think that anybody, Cabinet member or otherwise, has a knowledge of the future. After all, my Lords, even Old Moore proves more often wrong than right. But I do not wish to be unfair and if I am wrong, and it is quite clear on reading what the noble Lord said that he was referring only to the future, then I apologise. But that was not obvious at the time.
I noticed that throughout his speech the noble Lord referred to "North Sea oil". When the noble Lord, Lord Pargiter intervened the Minister said, "It is British oil, and that is that". May I say how grateful we are for that very
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firm statement. I hope that the Government will be able to keep to it. Incidentally, when referring to it on television on Monday night the noble Lord did not speak about "North Sea oil", but about "British oil", and we were very glad to hear that; although, as the noble Lord knows, North of the Border we talk about "Scottish oil".
We do not accept that the arithmetic of the situation given yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, is agreed by everybody. I do not think that it would serve any useful purpose to produce contradictory figures, but I have here a statement which seems to indicate that at least the Government are not wholly correct in saying that it is only the limited 16 million tons which was available, and that the difference between that figure and the 37 million is not really helpful to the present situation. If Ministers want me to elaborate on it I can give information, which I have been given, about stocks at particular electricity stations where coal supplies are being turned away; about coal being stocked at stations where it cannot be used because they are oil-fired stations, and so on. But I do not think that that would serve any useful purpose, because I have no doubt that then the Government would say that there are other stations where we ought to have coal and we do not have it, and that it would be uneconomic to move it from point A to point B. So if I do not elaborate on the arithmetic it is not because we agree with it but simply because I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by arguing about it at this stage in the debate.
The noble Lord spoke of the way in which restrictions on electricity are being looked at day by day, and of relaxations being brought in where anomalies can be corrected. He mentioned two in particular, hairdressing and the woollen trade. I saw on television the other night an interview with somebody in the woollen trade who pointed out the tremendous difficulties they were in, and I have no doubt that they will welcome very much the relaxation enabling them to use electricity, I think it is on Sundays, for a limited period. But I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will acquit me of any personal feelings in the matter when I refer to his bringing in a relaxation for hairdressers as relevant to

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the tremendous mess in which we are at the present time. What possible effect can that have on the situation? Obviously, if I had a wonderful head of hair like the noble Lord the Secretary of State for Energy I might be more interested in the matter, but it is pathetic that the Government should consider it worth mentioning as an item of relevance to the situation.
In relation to what is being offered to the miners the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred to a number of people who had negotiated settlements within Phase 3 and he asked whether it would be fair to them to go beyond Phase 3 for the miners. He referred to certain categories of people—farm workers, hospital workers, local authority employees—all of whom had settled within Phase 3. He asked, were they not important? Of course they are important, my Lords. But it does not in any way diminish the importance that attaches to the tasks that these people do to say that in the situation in which the country finds itself at the present time the miners must be a special case, different from any other kind of case which can be advanced. I am quite certain that if the Government can find it possible to get a solution of the mining problem which gives more than to farm workers, hospital workers, municipal workers and so on, they will have no particular complaint from these people, no demand for the matter to be reopened. In this context may I say that I understand that in another place to-day there is a Private Notice Question to the Prime Minister on the subject of the T.U.C. statement yesterday and the apparent contradiction between what the Prime Minister said in another place yesterday afternoon and what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said at the meeting of the N.E.D.C. almost at the same time. Obviously, it would have been impossible for the Secretary of State for Energy to have said anything about that before it was dealt with in another place, but I hope that when the noble Lord the Leader of the House comes to reply to the debate he will have something to tell your Lordships on that matter.
In that context I think what the Trades Union Congress has said is something the Government ought to be taking seriously
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into consideration. A document came into my hands a short time ago, and the House might be interested if I were to read from it. This is an issue to the Press from the Trade Union Congress—
"Mr. Len Murray, General Secretary of the T.U.C., has sent a letter by hand to the Prime Minister this morning repeating the offer made by T.U.C. representatives at the National Economic Development Council meeting yesterday afternoon. This was that—
'The General Council accept that there is a distinctive and exceptional situation in the mining industry. If the Government are prepared to give an assurance that they will make possible a settlement between the miners and the National Coal Board other unions will not use that as an argument in negotiations for their own settlements.'"
That is the end of the quotation. Mr. Murray goes on:
"This is a responsible and genuine offer by the T.U.C. to get the country out of its difficulties. I am looking for a positive response from the Government."
And then the document goes on to give the text of the letter to the Prime Minister:
"The Industrial Situation and the Three-Day Week: I am writing formally to confirm the text of a statement made by the T.U.C.'s representatives at yesterday's meeting of N.E.D.C. We indicated that the General Council accept that there is a distinctive and exeptional situation in the mining industry. If the Government are prepared to give an assurance that will make possible a settlement between the miners and the National Coal Board other unions will not use that as an argument in negotiations for their own settlements. I am sure that you and your colleagues will wish to give this initiative most careful consideration and I trust that there will be a positive response."
I hope that when he comes to reply to this debate the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, will find it possible to make some comment on this particular aspect of the present situation.
If I may return now to what was being said yesterday, in the course of a very thoughtful and helpful speech the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London said of Phase 3—
"I believe it to be our duty to try to make it work."
Phrased that way I think it might be accepted by many people—in fact it might be accepted by most people. Unfortunately, the Government interpretation so far is not to try to make it work but to make it work, and there is a considerable difference. There may, in a situation such as we are in, be a point where despite all

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the efforts to make it work it still does not work; and in so far as the mining industry is concerned is it not true to say that we have now reached the situation where it is quite obvious that Phase 3 is not going to work if it is to be rigidly enforced as at present interpreted. Surely part of the trying to make it work which the right reverend Prelate advocated is the sort of thing which the noble Viscount. Lord Caldecote, and the noble Lord, Lord Harvey of Prestbury, have done and what the T.U.C. have said in the statement which I have just read.
My Lords, while, obviously, any wage increase in present circumstances has some possibility of an inflationary effect on our economy, have the Government made any calculations—and, if they have, would the noble Lord the Leader of the House give us some information about it—as to what the inflationary effect of the three-day week is going to be on our economy, and the way in which this will escalate if it lasts for a week, or a fortnight or a month or three months? Surely the Government are not seriously contemplating the situation which the Prime Minister is reported to have given to the American Press, that he is prepared to keep a three-day week going until April.
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: My Lords, while I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he said about my-self, I should not like it to go out of this House that I was advocating that the Government should go apart from Stage 3. Would it be helpful to implement what the right reverend Prelate of London the Bishop suggested yesterday, that the Opposition, including the Leader of the Opposition in another place, should bring their influence to bear?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, so far I have referred only to these two suggestions, and I propose to return to them at the end of my speech, with a suggestion of my own because the spirit in which I entered into this debate was that it would be quite useless if all I did was to criticise what other folk have done without endeavouring to offer some suggestions of my own. Up to the present, a number of suggestions have been made, none of which has taken us out of the difficulty. It may be that a number of other suggestions will be made which will not take us any further, but it is just remotely
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possible that some people—including the two noble Lords of whom I have spoken—may put forward something which will help to bring the Government and the unions together in arriving at a possible solution. I appreciate that the noble Lord was accepting Phase 3, but I was assuming that he was doing what the right reverend Prelate suggested and was trying to make Phase 3 work.
The noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, in his speech said of the present situation (col. 616):
"It is a challenge to Parliamentary demo cracy, a challenge to the rule of law …",
and he went on to suggest that in the last resort the possible solution might be an Election. My Lords, let us examine these views, because undoubtedly there are many more people than the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, who hold them, and they have been widely expressed, particularly in the Press and on television. Phase 3 regulates the way in which wages can be increased at the present time and in the end result lays down maximum figures beyond which an employer may not go. This is inherent prohibition, but, my Lords, there is nothing in the regulations which makes it obligatory in negotiations for a union or employees to accept the figures. If they think, as the miners do, that the figures are quite inadequate, they are acting perfectly legally in adhering to their point of view. They are acting perfectly legally in endeavouring to bring their point of view into effect by industrial action. In what the miners are doing there is no breaking of law; there is no challenge to democracy; there is no challenge to Parliament. The last Government, the Labour Government, learned through bitter experience in trying to work it that a statutory wages policy was unworkable. Before the Election the present Prime Minister said that a statutory wages policy was unworkable and the present Government are repeating the experience of their predecessors in finding that a statutory wages policy is unworkable.
During the last hundred years we in this country have developed a system of fixing wages by negotiation between employers and employed, largely through employers' organisations, on the one hand, and the trade unions, on the other. In a statutory incomes policy, the negotiations go only to the point where the employer

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says, "This is as much as the Government will allow me to offer." If at that point the union, or the employees, do not accept the Government's limit, the disagreement ceases to be one between the employed and the employers and becomes a disagreement between the employed and the Government. This is the fundamental weakness of a statutory wages policy. It removes the negotiations which have been taking place between two sides of industry and makes the situation one of apparent confrontation between a union and the Government; and so long as the Government maintain a statutory policy this so-called confrontation will arise periodically.
I have been speaking recently at home and have tried to get the views of as many people as possible regarding the present situation. It has been quite obvious that the great majority of ordinary people are worried about a three-day week and about the effect it will have on their incomes while it lasts. Shopkeepers are worried about the effect it will have on their business, and the small shopkeeper is doubtful whether, if this period lasts until April, he will have any business left by then. Yet, at the same time, people just cannot accept that there is anything reasonable in the attitude taken by the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, stated yesterday that it is a fact of life that we shall be paying more for imported oil than we have done hitherto. I noticed on looking up last year's figures that the cost of our imports of oil was roughly £1,000 million. That was at the price of 11 dollars or more per barrel, and of course we do not know whether that will continue beyond April. However, the cost of an equivalent amount of oil in the present year will be at least £4,000 million. This figure was quoted by the French Finance Minister yesterday when he was referring to the French economy. It is a fairly wimple calculation: 100 million tons of oil imported at nine barrels to the ton, as I understand it, at a cost of approximately 11 dollars per barrel, works out at about £4,000 million as against £1.000 million on the old price. People just do not understand that we must accept this as a fact of life; that we have to find ways and means of paying an extra £3,000 million for oil, yet £44 million is the outside limit we can pay for
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coal. Even if we doubled our imports of oil to-morrow, it would not bring into operation any of the stations which rely on coal. This is why it is so difficult for the Government's point of view to be understood by the man in the street—that, on the one hand, £3,000 million is taken as inevitable, whereas to go beyond the £44 million is disastrous.
During the 1950's and 1960's, successive Governments progressively reduced the target for coal production in this country and relied more and more on cheap imported oil. The result, I think it is true to say, was that both the Government and the community accepted that the miners should fall down the league wage table; and that is what happened. If the miners themselves did not agree to this, it was certainly forced upon them. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has referred to the reversal of this position, but surely the converse must also be true. If the miner's place in the wages table falls as the importance of his contribution to the economy falls, then surely the miner is correct in saving that as his importance in the economy rises surely his place in the league table should rise. To restore coal to its former importance will call for greater effort than is being shown now, because Phase 3 does not put the miners back to the position they once held. I accept what the noble Lord was saying, that it puts them back to the position they held after Wilberforce: but Wilberforce did not put them back to where they once were when so much of the energy for this country came from coal. I hope the Government will realise that it is wise to go still further along this road.
In the context of yesterday's T.U.C. statement, surely we should be seeking to do the best possible for the miners at the earliest opportunity. I return therefore to the sort of proposal which was made by the two noble Lords and which I have quoted already. What I should like to add is this: let the Government have another look at any immediate way in which the £44 million could be improved upon. I hope that what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has said will not exclude the possibility of his doing so—perhaps by the lengthening of the day for which the miner is paid. Incidentally, I do not know whether I am a particularly ignorant Member of

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your Lordships' House, but it was a complete eye-opener to me to learn that a miner was not statutorily paid until he got to the actual coal-face underground, even though he may have clocked in officially 45 minutes before that. I am sure that this piece of information was news to the great majority of people in this country.
If the Government cannot accept that point, let them look at any other way in which the £44 million might be even marginally increased. The negotiations are in relation to a new wages agreement which I understand will operate from March 1. May I suggest that the new arrangement should operate from January 1, but that it be limited to a period of six months? The Government have held out to the miners their proposals for a very much improved future. I suggest that, whether it be by means of a Commission, a working party, or any other kind of body, the Government should start immediately on the task of negotiating this future for the coal industry as we want it to be in the next two or three decades in this country. Do not let us wait for six months to see how we are going to get along with it. Let us make the present offer one of a temporary nature, to last only six months so that during that period proposals for the future of the industry may be formally worked out between the parties concerned. Miners will not be impressed by a big promise of something at some time in the future. Perhaps I might remind your Lordships of the saying of the Scottish farmer who wanted to encourage his horse to start. He said, "Live, horse, and you will get corn." The miners are not interested in that sort of attitude, but if the Government will accept that a new agreed wages policy for mining should be brought in, say, at the end of June, we may see a reversal of the position which has led to the loss of 18,000 men from the coal industry so far in this financial year.
The Secretary of State for Energy has come from a long and distinguished period of office as Secretary of State for Defence. No one knows better than he that the day of gunboat diplomacy has gone so far as foreign affairs are concerned—in fact, our most recent incursion into gunboat diplomacy ended in our withdrawing the gunboats and getting a settlement. The equivalent of a "gunboat" policy is a
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sterile one of "no surrender". My Lords, nothing could be more disastrous, either for the mining industry or for the country.
3.39 p.m.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, I must begin with an apology, or perhaps I should call it a possible apology. The Political Committee of the European Parliament is meeting this afternoon in Brussels and I was supposed to be there, but I had to cancel because I was likely to be participating in this debate. However, the meeting is going on to-morrow morning and I therefore said that I would take the ferry tonight to Brussels, via Dunkirk, so that I should get there to-morrow morning. The ferry leaves at 9 o'clock tonight; so that seemed to be all right. If it does, I could no doubt listen to the winding-up speech and not fail in my attendance for the whole of this debate. But it seems that no engine driver is likely to be available to take the ferry down to Dover. Unless therefore—God forbid!—an engineer should be imported from Brussels by air to drive the train down to the coast, it is possible that I shall not be able to take it in which case I shall be able to hear the winding-up speech by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham. I hope so, in some respects, but it is a pity that I should have to forego the possibility of attending the Political Committee meeting to-morrow.
Having said that, my Lords, may I say that on the main issues of this deplorable industrial situation—the miners, the ASLEF go-slow, Stage 3, the three-day week, and so on—the attitude of the Liberal Party has been, rightly or wrongly, made quite clear, both here and in another place. We have not funked any issue, however unpleasant. That cannot be said. We have not said that it was all the fault of the Government and that it was simply up to the Government to get us out of the mess. We have tried to be constructive and to explain the attitude that we should take up if we were in control of the country. My noble friend Lady Seear made a very good and constructive suggestion yesterday as to how we might get out of the mess. In other words, we hope that we have behaved responsibly.
That does not prevent us from thinking that the Government, during the last three and a half years, have been extremely ham-handed and rather addicted to U-turns, and have been

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largely—though not of course entirely—responsible for the mess in which we find ourselves. That is our view. But I should like to restrict my own brief intervention this afternoon to a rather specialised subject which is perhaps peculiarly my own; namely, the proposed common energy policy of the expanded European Economic Community.
I assume that our new Secretary of State for Energy—whom I congratulate most sincerely on his appointment; after all, we on these Benches think that he is undoubtedly the most energetic Member of the Government—will be responsible for this subject; that is to say, will be responsible for the common energy policy pursued in the European Economic Community. And though he has not been exercising his functions for very long, I hope that after talking to the noble Lord the Leader of the House who will wind up the debate he will be able to give him enough of his views to enable Lord Windlesham to reply to certain questions which I propose to ask the Government. They are short and I shall not therefore bore your Lordships for very long.
The first question relates to the general policy which I suppose we shall pursue from now onwards in the European Economic Community. As I understand it, the first steps towards a common energy policy for the Community are embodied in a document prepared by the Commission which is at this moment before the Committee of Ministers of the European Economic Community. Much importance is attached, particularly by the Germans, to the approval by the Ministers of this project which is now, as we all know, held up, along with the resolution on the second stage of the proposed common monetary policy, because, owing largely to German opposition, we cannot yet induce the Council, in spite of the great efforts made by Sir Alec Douglas-Home, to vote the sums which we think are reasonable for the proposed regional fund. That is a fact. It now seems, in addition, that the French are complicating the issue by making their consent to the three projects to which I have referred dependent on their getting satisfaction regarding the price of beef.
Now we may or may not be justified in holding up agreement on a number of major issues—three, in fact—because
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we cannot get what we want in regard to the regional fund. I do not want to argue that issue to-day. In any case, it would be out of order. But what I should like the Minister to reveal to us, if he will, is the broad nature of the proposals now in front of the Ministers in regard to the common energy policy of the Community. If it is admitted (as everybody in a recent debate in this House showed that they favoured) that it is important that Parliament should know in advance what kind of legislation is under consideration in Brussels, then surely it would be advisable for Parliament to be informed in good time of the broad nature of the proposal which, if accepted, might start this country off in the direction of a common European energy policy. We should know in principle, though perhaps it is difficult for us to be told in detail, what it is that the Commission are now recommending to the Ministers as regards a common energy policy for the Community. Is it likely, if they can get satisfaction on the regional fund, that the Government will accept these proposals of the Commission? If they do, what are they? I should have thought that it is very important for us to have the information for a start.
My second question concerns the general desirability of a common European energy policy. At the Summit Conference of October, 1972, Ministers, as we all know, agreed in principle that there should be such a policy. At the Copenhagen Summit the other day, they further agreed that the Commission should prepare the document, which is now before the Ministers. The communiqué then issued read as follows:
"The Heads of States or Government ask the Commission to present by the 31st January, 1974—
the 31st January, 1974—
"proposals on which the Council will be invited to decide as quickly as possible, and in principle before the 28th February, 1974, to ensure the orderly functioning of the common market for energy."
That is part of the communiqué issued as a result of the Copenhagen Summit Conference. So it looks as if the Government were convinced of the necessity, in principle, of the establishment of a common energy policy for the Community. And, indeed, if we are to have, as the Government say they want, in only a few years' time, a full-blown monetary policy, a

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move to monetary union, and a regional policy, it is rather difficult to see how we can avoid having a common energy policy as well.
Naturally, most people agree that this common energy policy should, if possible, be agreed with the Americans. That is exactly what the Commission have suggested for their part recently in Brussels. They suggested that there should not be a common European energy policy which is at loggerheads with any American policy. Therefore, I again ask the Government whether they agree that before entering into a common European energy policy they should try to get agreement with the Americans—as a Community; not as four or five States, but as a Community—on what this common energy policy could possibly be. That is the second question.
The question I should now like to ask therefore is this. Supposing we have a common energy policy, is the idea that there should be, so far as possible, a common price for energy of all kinds within the Community, and that every member of the Community will be able to draw on such energy in so far as their means permit? Is that what is meant by a common energy policy? If not, what is meant by it? Should there be such a concept as security of supply, for instance? Am I right in thinking, further, that if there were a common energy policy it would rule out, in principle, the conclusion of separate deals by member countries with outside nations such as the oil-producing countries of the Middle East? One is now about to be concluded by France, and there are rumours that we are proposing to con-dude a similar deal with Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us whether that is a fact or not. It is important for us to know. But if the idea is that we can conclude separate deals on energy and oil with outside countries, how is that reconcilable with the idea of a common energy policy for the European Economic Community? I should like a clear answer to that question. I see the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, that great economic expert, nodding his head.
Generally speaking, would the Government agree that, failing some reversion to a siege or war-time economy, there is no point in our hanging on to North Sea
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oil entirely for our own national use, saying, "This is our oil and nobody else is going to touch it. We are going to have it all to ourselves and be completely self-sufficient! Is there any use, when thinking in terms of the Community, in taking up such a Gaullist or national view?
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for a moment? I do not know whether he heard the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, but that is exactly what it was. He said, "The oil is ours, and that is that."
LORD GLADWYN: But I am indeed questioning whether that is a reasonable proposition. It may be shared by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, who comes from Aberdeen. I should have thought that the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, would say, "It is ours; it is Scottish; it is nobody else's." However, if we pursue a purely national line any folly is possible. I would not disagree with that at all.
There is one more aspect of the common energy policy to which I should like to refer. As I understand it, there are two main proposals now for the production in Western Europe of enriched uranium. The diffusion plant system, recommended by France, in association, I believe, with Italy, Belgium and Spain, and the so-called centrifuge system, a totally different method which has not been completely developed at the moment, and which is preferred by us in conjunction with the Germans. The Commission have recommended that both these schemes should proceed together and they should, somehow or other, be co-ordinated—I do not know how. This should be done, the Commission say, within the context of a common European energy policy. Do the Government accept this proposal of the Commission, or do they still hope that there will be general agreement on the utilisation of the Anglo-German method of enriching uranium?
My Lords, I will conclude by saying that it looks as if, in spite of all our efforts, in spite of North Sea oil and everything else, we may be entering a period in which we shall not have all the energy in the next 10 years necessary to fulfil all our present programmes. We were told until last year that it would be inevitable, in

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accordance with our present programmes, for us to import and use no less than double the amount of oil in this country that we are now using. That may be so in accordance with present programmes, but what are we going to use all this oil for? Are we going to have double the number of motor cars, rising from 15 million to 30 million, in 1980? Are we going to have double the number of super highways carving up Britain into nothing but super highways for 30 million motor cars? Are we going to have an indefinite extension of concrete jungles, enormous numbers of huge uninhabitable flats? Are we going into the indefinite expansion of billions of plastic bags? Is that how we are going to use the oil? If not, how are we going to use it?
What is the point of this vast expansion of growth? What do we want it for? If we are restricted owing to the fact that we cannot afford another £4,000 million on the balance of trade in order to get this additional oil, is that necessarily a disaster? Might not nature be asserting itself in order to tell us to be reasonable, in order for us to go back to a rather better and more effective form of economy than the present one of indefinite expansion and growth? Is that what we are coming to? Do we really want all this oil and all this growth? Do we want this absurd expansion of growth for indefinite purposes in order to transform this country by the end of the century into a concrete parking place emplacement with the inhabitants living in concrete jungles?
Having said that, I would only add that I am sure these enormous problems will be considered by the new Secretary of State for Energy and his extremely competent team. It is probably one of the best teams the Government could have mustered, and I again congratulate them on the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and his associates, and wish them the best of luck in the carrying out of this extraordinarily difficult assignment.
3.57 p.m.
VISCOUNT WATKINSON: My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, is advocating, as I believe he is, some attempt to get an international policy on oil, then I certainly support that. I thought my noble friend Lord Carrington supported strongly the initiative of the
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American President in drawing together Foreign Ministers not only from Europe but from other countries as well. Perhaps that will be a good first step. I should like to deal at once with some points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, on what I might fairly regard as the T.U.C. intervention. Naturally, I hope the Government will explore this, as indeed I am sure they will explore anything that could get us out of this drastic situation. But it is only fair to say that I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, disposed of the unfairness issue. Those of us in industry who have settled pay agreements under Phase 3 are conscious that it is only fair to the 4 million people who have already agreed to it to make sure that nobody breaches it. Having said that—and I will return to it later in my speech—if the T.U.C. want to be helpful there is a good way in which they could be helpful and which does not entirely contradict what the noble Lord said, particularly at the close of his speech when he was trying to make some constructive proposals. All the T.U.C. have to do is to underwrite a post-Phase 3 settlement, to encourage the miners to settle under Phase 3 and come to a new arrangement for their industry. But to deal with the particular problem, I do not think it disposes of a very gross unfairness to the people who have honourably settled if we were to breach Phase 3.
In speaking to-day I do not wish to cover the ground that I covered in our previous debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said, the miners are still the heart of the matter and the solution which I personally am sure the vast majority of people think is fair and reasonable to all concerned is to settle the immediate dispute within the terms of Phase 3, but on the basis of a clear undertaking that the mining industry will then be subjected to an impartial and intensive examination to expand and upgrade it in the light of a totally changed energy situation.
I understand that to be what the Secretary of State for Employment said to them yesterday. If that is so, I hope that the N.U.M. Executive will listen because in my view such an examination must result in the recommendation of not only a better direct reward for mineworkers but also a new look at the industry as a whole, and longer-term commitments to

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major capital investment. I am aware of the cost provisions in the Coal Industry Act, but I will in a moment endeavour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, in making a practical suggestion here.
First, may I congratulate very sincerely my noble friend Lord Carrington on his appointment to the Department of Energy. I well understand why he has departed. As an Ex-Minister I am very conscious of the vast task which he must have in gearing up his new Department. I believe that most people in the country will think that the Prime Minister has chosen the right man to head this vital assignment. I think all of us in this House, on whichever side we sit, wish my noble friend the best of luck in a very difficult job. May I say, too, my Lords, that in the creation of this new Department, one headed by a very senior Minister, I think there is a considerable assurance to the miners that the Government do intend to do what most people wish them to do; namely, by upgrading the role of coal and nuclear fuel as sources of energy to make us less dependent on the whims and vagaries of world oil supplies. I hope that the National Union of Mineworkers will take note of the suggestion (which I think my right honourable friend made if I heard him correctly) that he himself would like to discuss this problem of the future of the industry with the mineworkers' union at an early date. If that is an incorrect assumption my noble friend who winds up no doubt will correct it, but I hope that this might happen. It is not, my Lords, a matter of getting over the next two or three years until we get British oil from the North Sea. We have to rethink, in fundamental terms, our whole energy policy. However we look at the matter, this still remains to be done. All I can say for the moment, then, about the mineworkers is that I hope this dispute does not go on until relations on all sides are so soured that more profitable arguments of more value to the miners about the long-term future are frustrated. Nobody in your Lordships' House will, I hope, disagree with me in that.
May I here make what I hope is a practical suggestion. I do not think it at all surprising in a declining coalmining industry, an industry that has been told for so long that it is almost on the way out, that promises of a new future are viewed with some incredulity. It would be most
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surprising if they were not. I noticed what some members of the Executive said about "jam to-morrow". None the less, it is true that this industry must have a different future now, thanks not to any thing we have done, but merely to a changed world situation. So there is some way to be found to show the miners that this is an honest promise, that if they will settle within Phase 3 some really meaningful re-examination can take place. I hope therefore that the Government will consider authorising the Coal Board now to start putting on the table actual figures relating to the sort of money they would be putting towards backing this study of a new future for the industry.
I am well aware that the Coal Industry Act provided fairly substantial sums; but equally I agree with other noble Lords that if you face a £3,000 million deficit on the balance of payments due to the increased price of oil, it is worth while stepping up your investment, and stepping it up now, in the coalmining industry. I would repeat: if the T.U.C. want to play a helpful role in this matter, as I am sure they do—I do not challenge that at all—then I hope that they may come together perhaps with the C.B.I., and support this plan, thereby giving some assurance to the miners that if they settle now in Phase 3 they have a real hard and practical guarantee that their industry is going to be looked at in a forward looking and expansive manner. I hope that this can be done and that there will be an early meeting between the Prime Minister, the T.U.C., and the C.B.I. to discuss the matter. The one thing I think that would be the worst for all of us is that if attitudes harden and nothing happens and we drag on until the atmosphere desired, as I have said on all sides, and a practicable workable solution becomes immensely more difficult. That is all I want to say about our current problems. I very much hope that there is some initiative in what many noble Lords have said here and in what the T.U.C. has proposed. I must repeat that that in my view is a way of getting round Phase 3, not only because it is the law of the land, but for the sake of all those workers who have honourably settled, often at some cost to themselves, within its terms.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Viscount for a moment? He referred to this letter from

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the T.U.C. I understand that it has been stated that the Prime Minister is meeting the T.U.C. at 6 o'clock to-night. I hope that is a hopeful sign.
VISCOUNT WATKINSON: I could not be more pleased, my Lords. I hope that something worth while will come out of that meeting and that the miners will accept what I call a post-Phase 3 plan of action.
May I just add one or two short points on the way out of our present difficulties, for when this is settled there will be a host of pieces to pick up? May I say what is perhaps a rather difficult thing, but I feel that it needs to be said. I think we have underestimated the effect on many moderate and sensible trade unions—and that means 99·9 per cent. of all trade unionists—of two things. One was what happened when the Labour Government, very honestly in my view, introduced their Fair Deal at Work and in the end had to drop it and the legislation that followed. I think many trade unionists felt that, in a way, they had defeated the Government. I believe that in just the same way, after the Conservative Party had introduced their long and complicated Industrial Relations Act and found, when they got it on the Statute Book, that they were unable to make very much use of many sections of it, the trade unionists again felt that they had outmanoeuvred, if not defeated, the Government. At any rate, that is my personal view. I think this has provided grounds for those individuals—I do not call them trade unionists, although many are in membership of trade unions, few in number but active—whose publicly avowed intent is to overthrow our present system of democratic and industrial government. I do not believe the numbers of these people are any larger than they were; I do not believe they are any more important. But they are always there—and we know it—ready to capitalise on a situation like this, and particularly in times when people perhaps begin to believe that industrial action can overthrow actions of Government and laws constitutionally passed by Parliament.
I do not think I am wrong in this, and I think what follows from it is that no Government could possibly give in to this quite unconstitutional pressure. I thought that was the rock on which our
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system was founded. It was certainly what we all believed, when I was in what was then called the Ministry of Labour many years ago, that however you played the game, however rough it got, you did not transgress the rule which was that you stuck by the laws until you could get them changed. Those who advocate any other course ought, in my view, to be resisted for the sake both of our Parliamentary system and of our industrial system as well. So, the question is: if that be true, how does one pick up the pieces when this is over, and how does one get through the present disputes in a sensible, practical way? I am still attracted by what the noble Lord, Lord Diamond, and others said in our last debate, that if there was some way in which one could broaden the base of support for the constitutional procedures in these matters, it would be a good thing.
But that is of course a matter that can be decided only by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, and I am not able to judge whether there is any way of doing that. So I will confine my remarks to what the Government should promise to do, both in the settlement of current disputes and when the disputes are over.
May I say just this? Employees to-day, whether they work on the shop floor or in management, will no longer accept a status that implies that their employers' responsibilities to them are totally fulfilled just by giving them a job and the rewards for that job. Ever since the war our system of education (the best in the world in my view) has been producing new entrants to industry who are better educated, better trained, better housed, better brought up in social terms, than ever before. Such people cannot be expected to feel that their capabilities are properly fulfilled by merely taking the first job that comes along offering adequate rewards. Quite justifiably, they want today to have more than this: the right to question and to contribute in their industry and, above all, I believe, the right to participate in the actual processes of decision-making. This is what has gone wrong in the railway industry, and perhaps in the coal industry. Perhaps one can go further and say that, despite the understandable allegiance of trade unionists to the processes of

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collective bargaining, certainly younger people in industry no longer regard collective bargaining as the total answer to getting wider participation in the processes of decision-making in their job. So, if we are to learn a lesson from the painful events of the next few weeks or months, employers and trade unionists must take more account of these new desires, and must offer some hope in the future for their fulfilment. Otherwise, in my view, rightly or wrongly (I do not know whether everyone agrees, but it is my view), if we do not do this, we deliver ourselves to the anarchists and extremists and offer no alternative to continuing and disruptive industrial strife.
We all know that other nations face this problem. West Germany and Holland, for example, have pioneered new ways of meeting it. I personally think that these ways are not entirely appropriate for us, but if we do not accept them, then at least we must do our own pioneering and our own new development of new methods. What we have to do as soon as we get the immediate problem settled was not badly summed up in that part of the Report of the Confederation of British Industry on The Responsibilities of the British Public Company, which dealt with employer/employee relationships. Perhaps I may quote just one sentence:
"We believe that what is now required is the development of methods allowing a wider degree of participation in the processes of decision-making throughout British industry."
This is not the place or the time to pursue this matter further, but it is the place to say that that particular Report was unanimously accepted by the Council of the C.B.I. It has not been, so far as I know, in any way opposed by the trade union movement. I personally am surprised that more notice has not been taken of the trade union movement's own Green Paper on this subject, published by their Industrial Democracy Working Party under Sir Sidney Greene. It is a most interesting and stimulating document. I do not agree with it entirely, but I am surprised it has not had more consideration. I should like to say again that, if we are going to pick up the pieces, then there are indications in documents of this kind of the way that we might go. It must of course be charted by tripartite agreement between the Government, the employers and the trade unionists. It may seem a
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rather daunting task. It may even seem irrelevant to talk about it at this time. But I do not think anything less than this will in the end defeat those few people—and we know they are there—who wish to see our country broken and disrupted and of no further consequence in Europe or in the world.
My Lords, may I sum up these few remarks by saying this. First, there may be some hope now of getting meaningful negotiations going in the coal-mining industry. They must—they really must, in fairness alone to those who have settled—start by agreement of the miners to a settlement of their present dispute in the terms of Phase 3. Then I hope they will receive some firm guarantees that their industry must now be rated up in terms of pensions, of pay, of capital investment, and in terms of a long-term future. This is necessary for the national interest. I cannot understand now why the Trades Union Congress cannot support this. I believe the C.B.I. would support it; I hope the Government would accept it; and we might then be on the way to returning to some reasonable dialogue. But, even when we have done that, there is still so much to put right if we are to make these young men and women, and older men and women, in industry feel that in the modern world they are part of it and are participating in it. If we do not do that job as well, then we shall come again to these divisive and dreadful confrontations which ruin our country and in the end sometimes provide very little net gain for those who take part in them.
4.16 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I have made a discovery: "Life is better under the Conservatives". It was Mr. Heath who told us that, but he told it to us three years ago. Then again, "All our problems are the problems of success"; and that statement was made much more recently. Then again, he told us that what Britain needs is a high-wage economy. But that promise was made three years ago, and he may have altered his mind since then. But only a few weeks ago his great captain of industry, Mr. Peter Walker, was banging the drum and shouting, "Boom, boom, boom!" True, he has lost one or two of the stars on his epaulette since then, but that was

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the general attitude taken by the Government. So can we pretend that poverty prevents us from finding a few extra millions of pounds to settle the miners' pay on a reasonable basis and get the wheels of British industry turning again? I do not want to see my country plunged into suicide, but every day the three-day week lasts brings us nearer and nearer to the edge of the precipice.
We are told that our factories are overflowing with export orders. Yet down comes Mr. Heath with instructions to managing directors and shop stewards that those export orders are not to be fulfilled; and on top of that he comes along with a knife and slices off £10 a week from the pay packets of millions—it will be millions in a week or two—of British workers. If organised short-time really were necessary, it should have been organised on a more scientific basis so that some preference was given to the industries engaged on export orders, rather than to those who were merely catering for home consumption. Surely those firms which are turning out cars, agricultural machinery and textile machinery for export deserve a bigger share of the valuable electric energy which still exists than those firms which are engaged in making dolls' eyes and fancy panties and luxuries of that kind. We have to bear in mind that if these export orders are lost they will not return.
I have a strong feeling that this three-day week was introduced without sufficient thought and over too wide a range of British industries; and the panicky and brutal way in which it was introduced, without consultation with the employers, on the one hand, and with the organised workers, on the other, makes me believe, as it has made millions of other people believe, that it was introduced not as an economic measure but as a political weapon with which to bludgeon the miners. And this weapon was brought down on the heads of the community at the very moment when we were still exporting coal on the normal basis: nearly a quarter of a million tons exported in October; nearly a quarter of a million tons exported in November; nearly a quarter of a million tons exported even in December. Yet the whole of the Government's case seems to rest on the need for conserving our supplies of coal.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, will the noble Lord give way for one moment? Was that exported coal suitable for power stations in this country? I am simply asking for information: I do not know.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, that is a reasonable question. I was taught at school, and I think it is still the fact, that the bulk of the coal we export is steam coal, and what one needs in a power station is also steam coal.
There are also some very mysterious and contradictory figures about the stocks of coal at our power stations. Every speech that is made, every announcement on the wireless, gives a different set of figures, and I have made a note of a few of them. Mr. Heath told the House of Commons on December 18 that in October our stocks at the power stations were 18 million tons. Yet Mr. Boardman made a statement on January 2 saying that on October 27–28 there were 19·6 million tons. Then Mr. Prior broadcast on December 30, saying this:
"Before we took action on December 13 our stocks were running down one million tons a week."
Yet one day later, Mr. Boardman said:
"Over the five weeks between the start of the miners' overtime ban and the coming into effect of the restrictions announced on December 13 power station stocks fell by 3·6 million tons."
My Lords, 3·6 million tons in five weeks represent 700,000 tons weekly, and not the one million tons weekly that we had been previously told about.
So we have contradictions, first about the level of the October stocks and secondly about the rate of the run-down. These suspicious factors give credence to the suggestion which is held in some quarters that the three-day week was a political weapon. If that be so, and if the Government are indulging in class warfare, then the result can only be that there will be countervailing class warfare from some of the extremer members of trade unions. I do not want to see this; I think it would be a disaster. But if it comes about then Mr. Heath will be the man who is mainly responsible. He started it with his Industrial Relations Act. He continued it with his pay freeze and his rent increase legislation; and he has now crowned it all by his stubbornness towards the miners' reasonable claim.

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Stubbornness is not necessarily strength; it can often reveal a very unhealthy inferiority complex, and no man has done more in this country in recent years to stimulate and strengthen the influence of the Communists and the Trotskyists than Mr. Heath in this controversy over miners' wages. Trade unionists remember that at the time when they were being asked to accept a pay freeze the Government were allowing banks to give overdrafts on a tax-concession basis to speculators so that they could gamble on the Stock Exchange, and with our essential food supplies. These trade unionists remember also that at the very time their rents were being increased the reduction in taxation of the very rich classes in this country was being put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not want to indulge in the language of class warfare; I have spent nearly all my life preaching against it. But the fact remains that there is far too much class discrimination in much of the policy of the Conservative Party.
Now, my Lords, let us look at the immediate situation of the miners. The Government have said that they are offering the miners a more generous wage increase than they have offered to other people. That may be so if all the "ifs" and "buts" in the 16½ per cent. are taken into consideration. First you deduct 3½ per cent. because that is hypothetical and problematical, depending upon agreement upon an efficiency scheme; and the miners for years past have been disappointed when efficiency schemes have been under discussion. Then there is the deduction of income tax and other stoppages from the 16½ per cent. suggested increase. Then probably there will be a 10 per cent. inflation in the currency—a 10 per cent. increase in the cost of living.
Perhaps I may give some precise figures, rather than those general observations. We have been given to understand that these miners were going to get very big increases. Yet what do the proposed increases amount to? I quote the figures for the daytime shifts—those people who miss the sunlight in the morning—and they are all for underground workers. The mechanics at the coalface get £2·57 increase; craftsmen (first-class) elsewhere underground get £2·57 increase; the third structure of them, also underground, get £2·57 increase;
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the underground men, Grade I, get £2·57 increase; the underground men, Grade II, get £2·57 increase; the underground men, Grade III, get £2·57 increase. Those figures are from the National Coal Board as published in the public Press of this country. There are of course higher increases for the men who work on the afternoon and the night shifts, but we must not lose sight of the fact that the men who work on the day shift lose a lot of the sunlight which ordinary mortals manage to enjoy.
The main fact is that the basic level on which these increases are being calculated is already too low and it will still be too low even when the £2·57 increases I have mentioned have been granted; and it will leave these miners earning much lower wages than many comparable grades of workers in the country. So can we wonder at the fact that miners are leaving the pits and are going to work in the factories down the road?
I do not want to go into any great details about differentials: my noble friend Lord Brown knows far more about those than I do. But surely any wage system ought to take special account of those people who render a particularly vital service to the country, and should remunerate them on a more generous scale than the people who are engaged in ordinary occupations which are less vital to the existence of the nation. The history of the last few days has shown that the miners play a vital part in our national affairs, but that fact is not being reflected in the pay they receive now nor in the pay that has been offered to them.
So if there is a wrong, why can it not be righted? The situation can be remedied, but all the efforts to give the miners a fair deal are frustrated by the rigidity of Stage 3 and by the inflated pride of its author. Stage 3 has become the dictatorial master of the State, rather than its servant, and Mr. Heath is picturing himself as a modern St. George, prepared to sacrifice the wellbeing of the whole country if only he can preserve the virginity of Stage 3. It really is time that he stood back and had another look at the broader question, apart from the narrow issue of the miners; otherwise, still more men will be leaving the pits. If he cannot get rid of this obsession of

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his to beat the miners, there will be unofficial stoppages throughout all the coalfields of this country. They have already started. Irrespective of what the national leaders want, most of the miners will down their picks and come out on strike. Even Napoleon's inflated pride was brought down in the end, and in the interests of the nation it would be a very good thing indeed if Mr. Heath ceased to model his postures on those of Napoleon.
He should bear this in mind, too. When Stage 3 was introduced we were in receipt of unlimited supplies of cheap oil. The position has now changed dramatically, and coal has become more important than ever it was before. I have said that there are solutions to this problem which are open to us. Surely a Government that can afford to spend over £1,000 million on Concorde, and over £1,000 million on Maplin (a scheme, incidentally, which basically I favour, if it is carried out at the right time) can find the extra few million pounds necessary to bring this miners' dispute to an end.
My Lords, there is the question of winding and washing time which I am quite sure can be probed more deeply than it has been. There has been too much of an inclination on the part of the Government and the Pay Board to sweep this point aside without further consideration, just as yesterday Mr. Barber swept aside contemptuously the valuable suggestion put forward by the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress. Winding time is one thing that could be investigated further. When all is said and done, a factory worker gets paid for walking from one part of the plant to another after he has clocked in at the factory gate. Surely the people in nuclear stations get paid for washing and reclothing themselves after their shift work. Surgeons regard as part of their normal working time the moments taken to assemble their tools, put on their masks and don their gowns. I think it is humbug that miners should be on the plant, walking about collecting helmets and lamps, changing their clothes and so on, all in unpaid time.
My Lords, a suggestion put forward by the Confederation of British Industry a few days ago—namely, that the Pay Board should be allowed to grant licences
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in what they consider to be exceptional cases for direct negotiations to take place between the two sides—is worthy of consideration. If all these things are swept out of court by the Government, could they not consider paying something of what we will call "danger money" to the men underground to compensate those men for the risk they take? I do not mean only compensate them for the risk of going down and coming up in the cage; not only for the risk of explosions, of roof falls, of collisions between trams and the danger of gas poisoning down below. I mean also compensation for the severe lung disease that many of them contract because every day they are working underground for 7½ hours and breathing in coal dust for every minute of that time.
It has been suggested that if only the miners would accept Stage 3 as it stands at the moment, then the Government would present them with a declaration of intent setting out their good intentions for the future. But the miners have learned from long experience where good intentions lead. Many good intentions have been placed before them in the past right from the days of the Sankey Report. Many of these intentions have not materialised. What the miners would like to see coupled with any declaration of intent, is some firm figures and some firm dates. If Mr. Heath would, at long last, consider this question of paying danger money, I doubt very much whether even the most hidebound Tory—though of course, there is none in this House!—would feel that he had been doublecrossed by his leader.
My Lords, surely at this moment, while the country is confronted with this great peril, it should be the task of the Prime Minister to raise his aims somewhat above the mere ruination of the country. He is dragging the country to ruin now, like Samson pulling down the pillars of the Temple. May be not be mistaken in his policy? He has been mistaken before. He promised to tackle our inflation and keep up the value of our money; yet the value of the pound has been sliding down to its lowest point. His printing presses have been turning out banknotes by the thousands of millions. He has been borrowing thousands of millions of pounds in order to balance his unbalanced budgets. He has been compelling public authorities and local councils to go on their knees to the Gnomes

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of Zurich to borrow foreign money. The trade balance deficit is now hurtling its way down into the region of £2,000 million a year. The City is in a state of panic as secondary banks collapse. Millions of modest, prudent, middle- and working-class people have seen one third or one half sliced off their whole life savings during recent months, and the pounds that are left are worth only fifteen shillings—a lot less than they were when the Labour Government were in office. The price of food has gone up to the highest figure in history. The cost of living generally has gone up to its highest point in history; rents, mortgages and rates are at their highest point in history. On the other side of the picture, the number of houses built in the past year has been the lowest for 10 or 12 years. All these calamities have been due to the mistaken policies of Mr. Heath, and now he is about to commit a further mistake. I wish he would consider matters again. What he is doing is going to cost this country hundreds of times more than a decent settlement for the miners would cost. He has taken a steam hammer to crack a nut, and is smashing the economy of the country in the process.
My Lords, what we must do is to get the industry of this country running again. I can only leave with the Prime Minister the thoughts of one of those charming American poetesses of the last generation:
"To change an opinion is but to say, 'I am wiser today than yesterday'."
I hope that Mr. Heath is a big enough man to heed that advice.
4.39 p.m.
LORD THOMAS: My Lords, one noble Lord who took part in this debate late last night referred to the rather pleasant custom that each speaker should make some reference to the preceding speaker. I should like to follow that philosophy; it is a gentle custom. I am very impressed and fascinated by what the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, has just said, because I find so much in it with which I disagree. It is fascinating from that point of view. I would suggest that it is in very considerable contrast with the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, under whose Ministerial guidance I served as a chairman of a nationalised industry years and years ago. He had constructive
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things to say with which I would very much like to associate myself. As a taxpaying, God-fearing, and I hope law-abiding senior citizen, I should like to contribute one or two pertinent remarks to this debate.
My Lords, no one can possibly gainsay that as a nation we are in a mess. But we have been in trouble before, and we have got out of it by doing something about it, so I, for one, was very glad to learn that Parliament was being recalled in order that the business of governing the country could be given impetus. I am delighted with the restructuring of the Cabinet so that greater emphasis can be placed on the problems of energy. I align myself with those legions of noble Lords who wish the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and his team the best of good fortune and cooperation. I should like to stand up, as Lord Shawcross did the other day, and be counted as one who does not clamour for a snap General Election. There is, admittedly, a tug-of-war for power and for control of our very livelihood going on to-day, but that tug-of-war is between a Government that have been democratically elected by the British public, and, at the other end of the rope, organised factions who, only too clearly, are not quietly inclined to accept the rule of the current Government. If we did have a snap Election and the present Government were confirmed in their position, they would still have to deal with the current problems. If by some chance the present Opposition became the Government, they, too, would still have to deal with the current problems, and on past reckoning and their display when they were in power there could be no guarantee that they could do better or quicker things for the nation.
In times of crisis—and we are in one now as important to our future as were those of the two great wars that have taken place in my lifetime—a very great deal depends on the physical robustness of the leader. Lord Leatherland has referred to Mr. Heath quite frequently; but I put it to you, my Lords, that in our present Prime Minister we have a man who radiates good health, is fearless in his judgment and has an enormous appetite for work. I think we want to keep him working for us as long as we can, and not add the dirty denigrating and

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vituperative mud-slinging of an electoral campaign with all its disturbances to our acute set of daily difficulties.
I would tell your Lordships that I personally am functionally and executively concerned with about 20 or more engineering plants, mainly in the Midlands, and a round-up this morning on the telephone indicates that although they are all working in a state of seige economy there is no indication that they are up against a stop or will be forced to shut down completely, as is the desire of some ill-wishers. Most of them have got steel stocks for 8 to 10 weeks' work, and so long as some more supplies of steel come along that work will continue. It is very interesting, incidentally, to note that the three-day week has substantially accelerated the rate of output per man, particularly those who are on piece-work, and in at least one factory as much output is being achieved in the three days as is normally achieved in five. In other cases the figure is about 65 per cent. of normality. This is no time for British industry to put up the shutters or succumb to our difficulties.
As has been said before in this House, those difficulties are a confluence and a coincidence of world-wide factors that have culminated in this winter of 1973–74. It has been put to me that their coincidence is part of a grand design inspired by some global " Goldfinger " who engineered the Middle East outbreak of war, succeeded it immediately by creating an economic upset in the supply of Arabian oil, both in price and delivery quotas, a disturbance that intensified global turmoil at the same time as the American Watergate and other Presidential difficulties were weakening the Western World. That grand disruptive design was intended, so I am told, to coincide with our miners' decision to extract less coal by withdrawing overtime, our train drivers' decision to do less driving and our ambulance men and firemen withdrawing their efforts, and so on and so forth. Well, I for one am not prepared to recognise this " Goldfinger " super-Communist bogey.
In my judgment, our situation is topical, even fashionable if you like. It is a malaise that is affecting all parts of the world as a stage in universal human evolution. I believe it is a cyclical surge of exuberant greed. It is symptomatic of a
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time when stridency in negotiation overcomes common sense, and appeasement will never satisfy that brute appetite. Even those of us with short memories can remember the very ugly riots in Birmingham and other areas when there were difficulties with some of the miners' unions in 1972. In my view, as an industrialist, it is wrong to try to settle a strike or even a threat of a strike too quickly. There is much to be said for either a voluntary or even an involuntary cooling-off period. Some may take the view that so long as talks are going on between two or even more sides it is an insurance that no worsening of the situation can occur. This I do not accept. I think it is worse to have frequent talks that get nowhere and are highly publicised as such than for there to be a period when the ill-effects of industrial inaction are fully assimilated by all parties, so that when they do get round the negotiating table the truth is recognised, that it is work and not words that will cure the situation.
I do not know whether there will be a Division after this debate. We have been told there will not be. If there is, I shall stand on the side of the present Government and let the truth emerge that under Phase 3 offers of increased wages made to the miners at the present moment are reasonable and equitable in a stairway or a step of betterment, especially when viewed in the light of the rises that have been accepted by 4 million other trade union workers. I took great note of what Lord Hughes said. I thought he was working towards saying that the miners must be recognised. We have to recognise that since Phase 3 was drawn up the whole world economic situation has suffered an irreversible change. When we can get the present dispute settled, when public amenities are brought back to the level of reasonable comfort, when punctuality of travel and stability of buying prices has been achieved, then we must very quickly have another close look at Phase 4, or whatever it is called. Phase 3 was decided upon when the main energy supplies were at totally different prices from what they are to-day and from what they will be in the future. Phase 3 was meant to be a powerful lever for moving enormous economic mountains and making them into peaceful plains. But since it was formulated the fulcrum point of its leverage has shifted because of the Middle

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East upset, and that fact must be taken into account particularly in so far as the future of the mineworkers is concerned. Coal has indeed become black gold, and we must recognise that fact in terms of reward for the muscle power and machine power involved in getting it.
Then, again, as a long-term energy policy, we really ought to have a hard look at overhauling the whole of our industrial wages structure. To me the word "overtime" should become a dirty word and anathema to our industrial code. Over the past half-century the so-called working week has been progressively shortened from 44 to 42 to 40 hours and is now somewhere well below that. The reason generally put forward for this shortening is to increase leisure time for the workers. But in point of actual operational fact the number of hours worked in the average factory have not been reduced all that much. What has happened is that the number of hours worked and paid for at overtime rate has much increased but the total time spent on the job has not significantly decreased to provide workers with more leisure or recreation. In my judgment a factory should be properly manned to be fully productive on the actual hours worked that are paid for at normal, and not overtime, rates.
One last thing that I hope is worthy of mention as a contributory cause of our present malaise is that it is too simple nowadays for people to obtain money in the form of so-called welfare for working hardly at all. No one wants to see families starve, but equally no country can properly afford to pay big money for little or no effort being supplied in return; and the sooner we face up to the fact that the right way to earn high wages is to work adequately hard and not to subsidise withdrawn effort or idle time, then the sooner we shall achieve economic stability, industrial peace and fully worthwhile living.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, does the noble Lord appreciate in his strictures about overtime that what the miners are doing at the present time is acting in complete agreement with him—they are not working overtime?
4.50 p.m.
LORD MAIS: My Lords, much has been said about the necessity or otherwise of the three-day week. Personally, I
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find it very difficult to form an opinion. We have been given a variety of figures of the stocks in the power stations and those at the pits, but whether or not they are accurate, I do not imagine that there is a great deal of difference between one end and the other. But there are two unknown factors which have not been referred to. One of them is that at the moment we have no means of really being able to estimate with any degree of accuracy what effects the various savings and restrictions on the use of power are likely to have. Secondly, the biggest factor of all is that we do not know the duration of the dispute or how long it is likely to last.
With those two factors in mind, I find it difficult to blame anybody for not making an accurate calculation as to whether you should have done one thing or the other. It may not perhaps altogether meet with the approval of some of my noble friends on this side, but I believe that the Government were faced with a choice whether to play safe and go for the three-day week, or to go on and run the risk of a complete shutdown. It may well prove—and I think it probably will in the end—that the three-day week was unnecessary, but I think it was prudent. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, that the decision was taken, so far as I can ascertain, with little or no consultation with industry or with the unions. Had that taken place, then I believe there might have been other ways of spreading this load than in fact reverting to a three-day week, because there are certain industries (particularly the export industries), which, in my view, should have had priority over others even if that meant closing down certain industries altogether.
May I now turn to those who are accused of being the cause of all this trouble, the miners. I have never worked down a pit but I have been down one, and in my life as a civil engineer I have worked in tunnels quite frequently and therefore I know what it is like to work underground. In my book, there are only two compensating factors for working below ground: one is the pay, and the other is the people you meet. Under those conditions there is always an element of risk; and a strange thing about human nature is that where there is an element of risk one tends to recruit the better men. Whatever the disagreement

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may be, whatever the difficulties may be at this moment, I doubt very much whether there is a single Member of your Lordships' House who would not agree with me that, as a group, you will not find a better body of men than the miners of this country. If one accepts that, I cannot see why a way out of this impasse should not be found without prejudice to Phase 3, and which I believe would be acceptable to the miners. I know perfectly well, as we all do, that the Government have a difficult job and the situation is extremely grave, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, said, we have been there before and we shall probably go there again, and this country has a way of getting out of these difficulties.
At the moment the Government, and all of us, are faced with inflation. If the door is opened to unrestricted wage claims, then the inflation will become galloping inflation, and then we are back at square 1 where we started. Therefore, it is obviously in all our interests that this situation should not be allowed to occur. I would pose a question: does this dispute really fall within the terms of Phase 3? As I see it, it is not a claim for an increased rate per hour, but a claim that the miners shall be paid for the time they spend within the pit area; that is, when they clock on they will clock on at a point near the entrance to the pit, and they will clock off at that point. I know few, if any, industries where that does not apply. I do not know what would happen in my own civil engineering industry if I said to those who work for me that they would not start receiving pay until they reached the top of a 200 foot reactor, or the top span of a steel bridge. I think I would get a slightly dusty answer, and I think I would probably face an industrial dispute almost immediately. But that is not so in the pits. As I understand it at the moment—and many of us have learnt this for the first time, although I must confess that I knew of it some years ago—the miners do not start their pay until they reach their place of work, which almost inevitably is at the bottom of the shaft.
Two nights ago I was listening to a radio programme, and some comedian announced that the Coal Board had carried out an investigation as to what was a reasonable time for the miners to come
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back to the bottom of the shaft, make their way up (allowing for waiting for the lift), and then across to the pithead baths where they would have to bath, put away their working clothes and their equipment. The time given was nine minutes. If that is the basis upon which negotiations are taking place they are unrealistic, and they are unlikely ever to be agreed to in any shape or form. I cannot believe that it is beyond the wit of man to find a compromise. The principle has in fact been accepted, otherwise the present offer would not have been made. There is only one problem to solve now so far as I can see, and that is how long it takes to come on duty in the morning—get ready to go down the pits, check your equipment, check your lamps, check your helmet—and then do the whole thing in reverse, plus getting the dirt of a long shift in a pit out of your skin and out of your system in a bath. If we are going to talk about 18 or 25 minutes, then we have not very much hope of achieving a solution. I know how long I think that it would take. I doubt very much whether it could be done in the average pit under half an hour in the morning and half an hour at the end of a shift, which is an hour a day. If we take an hour a day over a week, we are possibly getting somewhere near a figure that might be accepted.
Another matter that disturbs me over this whole business is the manner in which the negotiations have taken place. I have sat on many conciliation and dispute panels, and if you do not get somewhere near an agreement before you leave that table, and have to go away and consult bodies such as the Pay Board as to whether they are going to agree with what was discussed round the table—and they, in turn may have to discuss it with the Government of the day as to whether they are able to give that permission—several days have passed. During that time both sides have gone away and thought again; both sides have come under a certain amount of influence from their members; and when you get back to that negotiating table four or five days later, you are back at square one. In fact, you are lucky if you are still in square one. It is a pity that we cannot put these industrial negotiators into a room as we do with a jury, and send food into them at regular intervals and tell them to stop there until they have found

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an answer. At least we should then remove them from any outside influence and from the effect of militants on both sides who may aggravate the situation. Furthermore, they would soon get fed up with the whole business and come to terms.
The Government are in a desperate situation and, for that matter, so is industry. Industry is coping extremely well and, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, said, there are some extraordinary results, such as producing as much in three days as they were in five days. But this situation cannot go on for ever and the longer the period of dispute the longer will be the period of recovery. I should not like to hazard a guess at the devastating effect of another month's stoppage on industry as a whole. Furthermore, the longer the dispute goes on, the more time there will be for the subversive elements to influence men of good will. We must not attempt to cover up the fact that there are subversive elements around who have at heart the interests of no one but themselves and the people they serve, and who certainly do not have at heart the interests of the people whom some of them pretend to represent. There is much understanding and consideration in your Lordships' House, and that is why it is a pleasant place to be in. Let us hope that some of that understanding and consideration will rub off on those responsible for finding a way out of the present deplorable situation.
May I end by repeating a principle in which I have believed all my working life: that without flexibility and good will no industrial dispute will be solved. For that reason, I welcome the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, as energy overlord—and may he find a solution where so many have so far failed. Of one thing I am quite certain. The ordinary rank and file of the miners have no wish to continue this dispute, but it is essential that it is approached with a little more generosity and a little more understanding than has been shown up till now.
5.3 p.m.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mais. During the last year I had the duty of reporting to him regularly in his
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capacity as Chancellor of the City University, and I know at first hand the enthusiasm and energy which he brought to the two distinguished offices which he occupied during that year, as Lord Mayor of London and as Chancellor of our University. I am delighted that he is now released from those duties and is able to take part in the work of your Lordships' House.
Also, I should like, as other noble Lords have done, to congratulate my noble friend Lord Carrington on his appointment. I see that the newspaper headlines have already hailed him as " Lord North Sea ". No doubt it is only a matter of time before he becomes " Lord Pinta ", after that excellent beverage which has remarkable properties for filling the energy gap. But I must say, as others have done, that his continuance as Chairman of the Conservative Party may turn out to be a serious handicap to the success of his work in the industrial field. It seems to me to indicate that again the Government are blind to the fact that the problem of the coal miners is a political problem as well as, and perhaps more than, a problem of industrial economics. The danger of his position was well illustrated by Wednesday's placards which read, " Carrington says, ' No surrender ' ".
May I interpolate here the experience of a candidate in one of the Northern mining constituencies which I heard about the other day? He said that he had given up reading the hand-outs from his Party, and indeed reading newspapers to any extent, and had had to restudy the history of the first four decades of this century because the political controversies throughout his constituency were centred entirely upon them. To the miners the problem that we are facing is to be seen not only in the context of 1974, or for that matter of 1972, but also in the context of 1926 and 1912, and of those seering disputes of the 19th century. There is a danger that my noble friend Lord Carrington will be seen by the miners not as Secretary of State for Energy, having tremendous responsibilities to our country and to the Government, but as Chairman of the bosses' Party.
It is no longer a question of the miners' standing up to their employers in the Coal Board, or even a question of a struggle

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with the British Government—and that, Heaven knows!, is bad enough. There is an even greater danger of this dispute appearing to them to be a struggle between the workers and the Party which, to a large number of miners, has a class identification in the Marxist sense. In these circumstances, it will be very difficult to convince the ordinary rank and file, the good men, as the noble Lord, Lord Mais, has said they are, that they are having to deal with a Government which represents " one nation ". It will look to them more like a decision to promote a class confrontation; and, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, has already pointed out, there are plenty of Communists and ill-minded people who will not be slow to exploit such an idea.
Those of your Lordships who heard the speech of my noble friend Lord Aberdare yesterday, and to some extent the speech of my noble friend Lord Carrington to-day, must have been struck by what, to me at any rate, appeared to be a lack of recognition of the fact that, owing to the existence of a statutorily imposed incomes policy, a confrontation in a political sense has been made almost inevitable. There is a very serious danger, whatever may be the effect on the miners, that people generally in industry and in the normal walks of life will begin to believe that the problem of rising prices, of inflation—which is the bugbear of this nation, and of others as well—has taken second place and become of secondary importance to what appear to them to be the more immediate problems of the effects of the three-day week, of unemployment, of unpaid mortgages, of bankruptcies and the manifold personal hardships and discomforts which we are suffering to an increasing extent. They will be seen to be the result of a policy imposed by the Government on a Party political basis arising out of the confrontation which the statutorily imposed incomes policy has created, and as a result it will be the Government and not the miners or the Arabs, or anybody else, who will take the blame.
Many people in this country, including working people, criticise, and to some extent dislike, the miners. But calling on the British public generally to go through an ordeal in order to withstand
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the wage demands of a section of our nation that is doing what everybody admits is a vital, dirty and dangerous job is very different from making similar sacrifices in order to defeat, let us say, the oil sheikhs of Arabia and saving our economy by undergoing the deprivations which are necessary so that we can save fuel and support our export industries to pay for the fuel that we are able to obtain. In our heart of hearts we know—95 per cent. of us—that were the miners to receive twice the wages which they demand at the present moment, it would never induce us to work in a coalmine.
The British people, I suggest, are realists. They can understand, and they can withstand, pressure from the foreigner, and such pressure produces a sense of national unity. They almost welcome, I would say, on occasion, the challenge which such pressure presents, whether it be in circumstances of peace or in circumstances of war. But the English have developed a sense of nationhood which seeks always, and under Governments of all Parties, to avoid a political situation in which a solution by way of compromise, however unsatisfactory, in the short term, that compromise may apparently be, is rendered impossible.
I can only repeat what I have said on at least two previous occasions in this House. If the Government want to get their economics right, they must first get their politics right. To do this they must get out of what Mr. Enoch Powell, with whom I do not always agree, recently described as " the cul-de-sac of Stage 3 ". They must ensure that the sacrifices demanded of the British people are directed to offsetting the effects of the policies of the oil-producing countries rather than to frustrating the demands of the miners. In his speech, my noble friend Lord Thomas, although he seemed in the first part of it to be following one theme, in the second part made the point quite clearly that the whole situation which was envisaged when Stage 3 was introduced has radically changed. The result is that it no longer has the relevance to the situation here which it had in the autumn of last year: and in those circumstances it now needs both flexibility and imagination on the part of the Government in order to make the changes which I think many of us realised some weeks ago were inevitable.

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My Lords, the Government must be in a position to allow Mr. Whitelaw to act genuinely as a conciliator. It seemed to me to be astonishing to bring somebody back from an important post—a critical post—in Northern Ireland to use his abilities as a conciliator in the industrial field here and at the same time to place him in a position where he was unable to exercise any form of conciliation at all apart from such personal attributes as he may have. That is the first thing which I believe is necessary.
The Government must allow my noble friend Lord Carrington to have a non-Party political role at the present time as Secretary of State for Energy. They must give to Britain—which, on account of North Sea oil, is regarded internationally at the present time as having, after the United States, the best prospects of achieving and maintaining economic viability in the latter years of the twentieth century—the chance of doing so as a united nation. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said in his speech (and I think I am right in the words that he used) that our coal industry is greater than the coal industries of the other European countries put together. If that is the case, we have an immense advantage. We have an asset which the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, described in glowing terms. The fact of the matter is that we know that we have that asset, and that we must make the best use of it—and so do the miners. They know very well that they are in a position, as opposed to those years of run-down of the coal industry, which is a position of strength; and if we take the back history of the mining industry over the last hundred years, it would be asking more than can be expected of any group of people, especially the miners, to ask them not to take advantage of the position in which they now find themselves.
There is now a chance of something constructive happening. As the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said in his interruption a moment ago, the Prime Minister has asked the T.U.C. to meet him at No. 10 Downing Street this evening in order to discuss the implications of the letter which Mr. Murray has sent on behalf of the Trades Union Council. I hope and pray, my Lords, that this will give an opportunity (and it is appropriate that it should come from the statesman-
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like attitudes of the Trades Union Council, of which we all know they are very easily capable and which they have shown on previous occasions), and that this opportunity will not be lost, of trying to extricate the present Government from the position in which we find ourselves and which they created in circumstances which, as Lord Thomas said, were quite different—that is, for dealing with an inflationary situation, whereas now the problem ahead of this country is to deal with the lack of, and the necessity for, adequate energy resources for our country's industry and for our future. I hope that pride on both sides, the sense of reputation, the desire to maintain credibility and the many other human considerations which are always involved in circumstances of this sort, will not allow this opportunity to be lost.
I hope, my Lords, that the Government do not feel themselves so committed ideologically to a statutory incomes policy that they cannot contemplate any compromise or flexibility in the application of Stage 3. As the noble Lord, Lord Mais, said in his speech, flexibility is absolutely essential in all industrial negotiations; and those of us who have had some small part in politics during our lives know that success in politics, and in diplomacy, depends on always being able to retain room for manoeuvre on both the sides concerned in any negotiations. That is precisely what the Government must now regain as a result of the Trades Union Congress initiative in its role of managing the economic and industrial policy of this country.
Both Mr. Heath and, to my surprise, Mr. Wilson, have made use of a phrase which was coined by a small group of Conservative Members of Parliament in the 1950s—a group of which I was one—that is, " One Nation ". Our aim in those days was to find a means through social policy to give to our Party the character of a national Party, divorced from any class basis and acutely sensitive to the social aspirations of all the people in the conduct of their ordinary lives. To some small extent, perhaps, we succeeded. But to-day it is far more essential that a Government drawn from that Party, and including more than one member of that small group, now in high office, should show that it is a national Government

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able to reconcile and conciliate, and to harness the energies and patriotism of our people in the field of industrial life to help the solution of the immense problems with which recent developments have now faced us. My Lords, unless that can be done, and done quickly, none of the consequences which we fear lie ahead of us, and which will be tragic for us all, will be easily avoided.
5.20 p.m.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, whenever I listen to the noble Lord, Lord Alport, I cannot help feeling that we ought to be sitting on the same Bench. It always seems to me that he is able to put very clearly the essence of the matter on these political problems, and I think that he has done it very well this afternoon. I would not say that I agree with every word he said, but I certainly find in him that sympathy and understanding of the situation which, unfortunately, one does not often hear nowadays. I congratulate the noble Lord on the way in which he has presented this point of view.
It is important to realise that one of the difficulties in the modern world is that the growth of power, the centralisation of power, has meant that big nations, big corporations, powerful Governments, tend to push people about. We have seen that in a country like the United States, which has often done things with the very best motives; and the very good things which they have tried to do have aroused antagonism because of the way in which they have tried to impose them on the rest of the world. And throughout the United States young people have revolted against the rather arbitrary and, surprisingly for a democratic country, the authoritarian methods they have often employed. It reached its climax over the Vietnam business. One finds that this attitude goes right through Governments nowadays, so that a Government says, " Ah, but we know what is best for the people; we lay down the rule and it is up to the people to obey it." My Lords, none of us likes this method of treatment, and trade unionists dislike it as much as the rest of us. Therefore it is vital and essential to understand that this is not the correct way to govern a country. It is not the right way to get people to do the sensible thing. They
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will do the sensible thing if you can convince them that it is sensible, and is worth their while. They will not do the sensible thing if you tell them that you have introduced a law which forces them to do it. Therefore, my Lords, it is important that Governments should realise that they must win the consent of people and that they cannot order the consent of people. I think that is one of the things which Government in this country now has to begin to appreciate with regard to trying to achieve anything like an incomes policy.
Enough has been said by other speakers about the general political and economic problems which arise at the present time. I wish to be brief and to call attention to certain technical matters. First of all, I would welcome the Government's decision to set up a Ministry of Energy. In debates in this House before Christmas, many of us from both sides of the House pressed the Government to set up such a Ministry. At that time there was reluctance on the part of the Government, but they have acceded to the request and have set up a Ministry of Energy. I regard the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, as an admirable person to be the Minister. But from a political point of view I am surprised that the Government should place the Minister in this House, because it seems to me that, valuable as it may be for us to have him in this House, it can be very objectionable to the other place not to have in that House the head of what should be perhaps the most important Ministry. Therefore I am extremely surprised that the Government should take what I regard politically as the very injudicious step of placing the Minister in this House, excellent man though he is. However, my Lords, the Minister is here, and we shall do our best to encourage him and to help him. We shall give him a warm welcome, even if sometimes that means a " roasting ". We shall do our best to ensure that he is able to do his job and we shall keep on reminding him of the job that he has to do.
I wonder now and again whether the noble Lord will not perhaps regret one or two of the Acts which he introduced before he was Minister of Energy. It was a little over a year ago that he introduced a Bill in this House for taking over the Aldermaston establishment and putting it

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in the Ministry of Defence. I looked up the speech that he made at the time because I criticised that Bill very strongly and said that I thought it was a most unwise measure. The noble Lord said:
" I do not believe it is possible to use economically the resources which I have at my disposal at the Ministry of Defence unless I am actually managing all the establishments where there is research and development and production for the Armed Services."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16/11/72; col. 839.]
And 20 per cent. of the work at Aldermaston is effectively in the field of civilian energy, as the noble Lord himself admitted. Therefore, instead of having control he will now have to be a suppliant of the Ministry of Defence and ask them to kindly do work for him and his new Ministry. These are some of the unfortunate consequences of past Acts.
My Lords, there is one other matter which was raised in our debates before Christmas. It was a suggestion which came from noble Lords on both sides of the House. It was made from the Liberal Benches by the noble Lord, Lord Tanlaw. From these Benches, I remember that the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, put it forward. I think I am right in saying that the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, also put forward the idea; certainly it was put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, and I put it forward myself. We proposed that there should be an Energy Commission as well as a Minister of Energy. The reason is quite simple. It is that the problems of energy and the use of the types of energy that you will need and how you employ them are changing continuously. They need the most expert, the most modern and the most imaginative approach. Unless you have that, you may be quite sure that the problems we are trying to tackle to-day, even if we solve them to-day, will turn up in some more intractable form in a few years' time. It is therefore vital to have a continuous investigation of this matter done in the most expert way.
We may say that this could be done by the Civil Service, but the Civil Service was not set up to do this sort of thing. It can be extremely good at analysing a problem which is put before it, but it was not devised as a body created and set up to try to look into all the various possibilities. Therefore an Energy Commission seems absolutely essential. Such a Commission would not
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be one which decided policy; it would be the business of the Minister to decide policy and not that of the Commission. But how can a Minister reach decisions without proper advice? The Minister is not a technical expert; he is not meant to be. Your Lordships are not necessarily technical experts and certainly Members of the other House are not technical experts. We require a body which is continually looking at the position, publishing all that it knows and keeping us fully aware of what is going on.
There was an interesting article in The Times two days ago on the consumption of energy in agriculture and the yield from agriculture. It was a quite remarkable analysis which was carried out by some Americans and published in the American journal, Science. The facts come out as follows. You take the energy that is put into the growing of a particular crop. The energy may be in the form of human labour or mechanical labour, or the oil or fuel used, or the various weed killers used or the various fertilisers that are used—all the energy that goes in.
That is one side; the other side is the energy which comes out. That is easily evaluated: it is the yield of the crop, the actual calorific value of the crop. It is not worked out in terms of money, but in terms of energy units, which makes it an absolute comparison and not one dependent on terms of trade. And the interesting result is this. In 1950, the crop in America, which the Americans call corn and which we normally call maize, yielded 3.28 times in energy the energy that was put in in the various ways of cultivation; that is to say, one got back roughly three and a quarter times the amount of energy that one put in. In 1970, as a result of great developments, of more intensive cultivation and better mechanisation, the crop yield was 2·81 times the amount of energy put in. In other words, the marginal return on the extra energy put in was negative; one was getting less crop from more energy. This is a startling result and it shows a waste of energy. It shows that one is putting in something and not getting back the appropriate return. This is something which cannot be observed by someone simply going and costing a crop. It can be observed only by detailed analysis such as has been done in

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America, and it is important that that type of detailed analysis should be carried out. That is one example.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, does the writer of that article offer any explanation for that deterioration?
LORD WYNNE-JONES: He did not actually give an explanation; he stated the facts. But I think the explanation is perfectly clear; that is, that while more energy was used over that 20-year period, the return on that additional energy was less. This is a familiar fact. If you start doing something and first of all put in a certain amount of energy you may get an excellent return, but you then go beyond a certain point and get no increase for the extra energy you put in. That is what was happening there. The extra energy that was being put in was not constructive, and one was therefore wasting energy.
Now, my Lords, one might look at other matters which must be investigated—for example, the coal industry. We know perfectly well that we have vast reserves of coal, but we can win this coal only by spending a very large amount of money over the next ten years. The Coal Board's estimate of the amount required is between £1,000 million and £2,000 million on top of what has already been promised by the Government. This is additional expenditure. The Government, quite rightly, take credit for what they have already promised to do—an excellent thing—but this is additional expenditure that will be needed to open up new pits in order to keep our production going effectively. There will be no point, my Lords, in opening up new pits if we do not have the miners to work them. This is a problem that we have to face. Our future is dependent very much on the good will that is created in the mining industry.
We might look at the position with regard to natural gas. We are now running almost all our gas installations on natural gas—a very excellent thing. One might, however, ask whether there is one other thing that can be done with natural gas, and that is to produce methanol from it. This is something which can be used as a valuable substitute for gasolene. It can be a complete substitute or, alternatively, it can be mixed with gasolene and actually gives an improved performance in an automobile engine.
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My Lords, it is not my purpose to put before you various suggestions which ought to be carried out. I am trying rather to indicate that there are a large number of problems which are suitable only for investigation by an expert Commission, sitting all the time. It is not for me to investigate these things; I have not the resources, nor has any one of us. Not even a big company has all the resources to do this. But there must be somebody who is doing it; and it ought, in my view, to be done by a permanent expert Commission which would be set up by the Minister and to which people would be appointed for a term of years: experts from universities, from industry, from the various fuel companies and so on. If we did this we should place the whole of our energy situation in a very much better position. We should have a powerful instrument for dealing with the future, and we should know that we have the information on which all of us could make up our minds. I do not believe that experts should be allowed to make up our minds for us. Their job is to give us the precise information on which we can make up our minds. We are faced to-day with the question of what nuclear reactor is to be chosen, and the horrifying situation is that neither the Government nor the Electricity Board nor anybody else knows what should be chosen.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, I find my noble friend's comments somewhat confusing. Am I right in assuming that originally he stated that it should be the Civil Service who ought to be making the decision, and conducting the inquiry, when he made reference to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington? Now I understand that he thinks people in this House or Government themselves should make the decision. Would he clarify the point he is making?
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, I am sorry that my noble friend misunderstood me. I certainly never said that the Civil Service should make the decision. I say that it is the Minister's responsibility to put forward a policy, but it is the responsibility of Members of both Houses to criticise that policy and to analyse it, and they cannot do this unless they have the facts at their disposal. Unless there is a Commission which is capable of giving expert information and

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which continuously advises the Government and Parliament, then it seems to me that we are working as blind men and we never really know what we are trying to do. We have a vague idea that we want energy, but no one of us can say—and I was about to go into the question of nuclear reactors—what sort of reactor should be introduced.
We are not even told by the Government whether they will give us the facts before they announce a decision.
This is an astonishing situation, my Lords. We are treated like children and I think it time that Government realised that neither Parliament nor the people like being treated like children. We like to be treated as adults, as though we can understand arguments put before us. This is a matter to which I would beg the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to give first attention. He has now got this Ministry; let him consider seriously setting up an Energy Commission and let him give the facts so that we are all able to consider what is happening, and are all able to discuss intelligently what our policy should be.
5.40 p.m.
LORD STRANGE: My Lords, a new custom has come into the House since my day, not only of congratulating maiden speeches, but congratulating the last person who spoke. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wynne-Jones, who has made it impossible for me—but I am a good loser—and to thank him very much.
I think that we in this country have the greatest secret service in the world in this country—it is run by the Russians. However, I do not think that this is a typical Communist strike. It reminds me very much of the great strike that occurred in 1926. There was also an earlier one in 1911—I was rather young then, but I certainly saw the whole effect of the 1926 strike. I had a fast car at the time and I drove it all through the strike. I was then in the theatrical profession and I had a revue going on in South Wales. I went down there and I remember very well that I had never seen anything like it: it was deplorable. Everybody was out of work and they we're all at starvation's door. I did not know that anything like it could happen in any country. The
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Rhondda Valley was prosperous before. Of course I could understand why they were going on strike: there was no wonder at it. It was the same all over the country; it was a slump.
I do not think that at that time there was a Communist movement behind the strike because, as I say, I drove everywhere. On one occasion I think we went to Horse Guards Parade and a chap came running up and said, " They are all killing themselves down at Whitechapel ". Then this poor man said to me, " Will you take these British Gazette papers down to Whitechapel? " I agreed and I drove down there. There were people shouting at me. What they were trying to do was to buy the papers so that they could sell them and get a good price for them. Later on I think we had an auction and I got about seven shillings for those papers. In the end I gave the money away; but there were these wild rumours going round all over the country. I drove my car all over the country from the beginning to the end of the strike and I never saw any trouble. Everybody was very friendly—I talked to a great many people and they were quite happy.
I do not think there was any Communist element at all in that strike. I do not think there is any real Communist element in this one either; it is just that the world now is in a mess, just as it was before. This time it is not a question of starvation because things are quite good. It is just that people get fed up—most of us get fed up sometimes; in fact I even get fed up myself sometimes. But of course there are Communist strikes from time to time. When Mr. Wilson was Prime Minister, he had to deal with a very interesting strike. That was the seamen's strike, which went on and on and on and really ruined the Merchant Navy. Mr. Wilson told us—and he was in a position to know—that it was a Communist organised strike and that it was deliberately organised by Communists. So there are Communist strikes.
Exactly what the Russians are trying to do, I do not know. I rather like the Russians actually: they have a great sense of humour. I have known many of them in my time. One of them once said to me: " We do not know what our population is, but we do know that we have 20 million people in gaol in Russia." I thought that was quite amusing. So

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they have that sense of humour, which is nice. They are a nation of chess players, as your Lordships know. They go in for Plans which they understand but no one else does—five-year Plans, ten-year Plans—and then the Plan which will be even better next year, which is a good one. So I fancy there is a plan behind all this. However, I suppose there are quite a lot of Communists in America who have not yet been cleared out. They are all over the world; and at the right time, if they want to, they will be able to create a diversion throughout the Continents which will enable them, presumably, to attack China. Why they should want to attack China I have not the faintest idea, nor have I the faintest idea why China might want to attack Russia; but people have come back fairly recently from that country, and from what they say it is getting towards that way of a war. My Lords, do you not think I have spoken enough?
5.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, following the example of the noble Lord, Lord Strange, in congratulating the preceding speaker, I think one must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Strange, because if the world were like his speech it would be a much happier place and there would be none of these rather dreadful things to face.
Yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, appealed to this side of the House to move in its ideas nearer to his noble friend. I am going to appeal to the noble Lord's noble friends to move more towards consensus policies within their own Party. I do not do this in any way to stir up things but to get a sensible national viewpoint. As has been pointed out already, most Governments since the war have come to the conclusion that an incomes policy is essential. I believe that even Edward III, during the Black Death, and Elizabeth I, during another crisis, came to the same conclusion. The object of all incomes policies has always been the same: to try to avoid inflation and mass unemployment. Sir Stafford Cripps, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd, Mr. Wilson and now, much against their own will, the present Administration have all followed this objective.
In passing, it is worth remembering that before Wilberforce they did have an incomes
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policy but they did not call it so. It was based on the principle of accepting 1 per cent. less than the previous wage increase. After Wilberforce, as has already been pointed out, the miners stopped there, and in the six months following Wilberforce wage increases doubled over the previous six months. Cost-push inflation was with us with a vengeance, and therefore the statutory wage policy became essential. Wage - cost - push inflation stopped and British inflation became one of the lowest in Europe. Therefore, I appeal to the noble Lords opposite: Can they imagine what the erstwhile second Viscount Stansgate—and that is just as good a name for him as Tony Benn—would be saying if the policy was applied only to the lower paid? I seem to remember reading of the horror expressed in the Labour Party and in the national Press about the nurses not being allowed more than 2½ per cent. by Mr. Selwyn Lloyd. An incomes policy must be for all and not just for some. It cannot work—as all except the great Liberal economist of 1880, Mr. Powell, wanted it to do—unless it applies to everyone. Of course the details must be debated, discussed and amended, if necessary. If the T.U.C. can make Mr. Murray's offer stick, that the special case would apply to the miners only and that no other union will waltz through the hole created, then obviously in my view we must consider it.
There have been several ideas put forward, notably by the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, on post-Phase 3 deals for the miners. There was even a suggestion put forward by Mr. Bernard Levin in The Times last week, that one of the ways of withdrawing some of the unhappiness at the coal face would be to make very generous settlements in retribution for industrial injury and pneumoconeosis, so that those concerned would not have to sue the Coal Board, and so on. These are all possible ways out of the difficulty, but if Mr. Wedgwood Benn were in Cabinet now, facing the possibility of a General Election being forced on us and the unlikely possibility of Mr. Wilson forming a Government, it is almost certain, in my view, that a severe incomes policy would come in with the next Labour Government and some of the lads on our side would be making exactly the same noises as those people on the Opposition Benches—not in this

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House, I may say, but in other places. This would be most unattractive and of no use to the country at all. If the miners do destroy the incomes policy I do not think it is really going to benefit them in any way whatsoever, because Government will have been dealt a very grievous blow.
Yesterday somebody referred to this society—I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft—as "liberal, fragile and humane". I for one, should not like to live in any other kind of society. It is by far the best because it is more fair and more sensitive to people's demands. Admittedly, I speak as a relatively privileged member of it. This in turn makes it much more difficult to say to the miners, "Accept a pay rise now within Stage 3; accept a wage rise which is a lot lower than my income for doing a job which I would not want to do myself." We are in a very difficult position to say this but I still think that we ought to say it.
May I make a passing reference to the railways? As the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, said yesterday, each evening in the City there are queues of clerks, young married women, and young men, many with inadequate salaries. They are not getting paid "winding home time". They fail to see that drivers sent home for not doing any work is provocative. I feel that they may be under the impression that not to drive trains when asked to and agreed to is marginally provocative.
I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, when he replies to be more forthcoming than was the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, when he spoke yesterday on oil supplies. Last month the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, answered a query of mine on oil shipments from the Gulf loading points and on some periods that I quoted he said they were too small. I now have here some figures for the months of November 1972 and November 1973 from Ras Tannurah which is the Saudi loading point and Mina al Ahmadi which is the Kuwaiti loading point. I would ask you to remember that these are the two greatest cutters-back of oil output. The Saudi dead weight tonnage sailings figure was up from 27·7 million tons to 29·5 million tons, and the Kuwaiti
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figure was exactly the same, at 9·4 million tons. These figures come from the Lloyd's Register of Shipping and I have the name and tonnage of every vessel that sailed from those two loading points. My shipping contacts tell me that there has been no shopping from one loading point to another and no sailings unfilled except for the two very well publicised cases of the Globtic tankers. Nigerian and Iraqi production of oil has been increased as has that of the Iranians who, incidentally, according to information I got to-day, are charging the Israeli Government 23·40 dollars a barrel for it. It is thought, and I believe it is very well established now, that oil is being used by the oil companies to pay their royalties. Some of that oil is coming into this country, is being refined in this country and sent out again. That does not get entered into the import/export statistics, but is entered as an invisible balance statistic.
What I am trying to get at is this: Could we have from the Government what are the tonnages used, the tonnages needed, the tonnage available and the ideal tonnage that we should have now? United Kingdom refineries all have to keep detailed records and have to inform Her Majesty's Government fully of their plans. But the Government have not been as forthcoming to the British public on oil stocks as they were finally made be on coal stocks.
My Lords, the recent Saudi noises of wrath with the Shah are reputed to come as a result of Mr. Kissinger's pointing out to Sheikh Yamani that American technology when mobilised has an ability to solve problems that other communities do not have. Therefore Saudi Arabia is not keen to make the Americans go in for a really crash programme of shale oil extraction because there are vast reserves of shale oil in the United States and there are vast reserves of oil in Saudi Arabia which they want to go on selling. So it appears that Saudi Arabia is keen that in the long term the oil price should not be more than about 9 dollars a barrel. This has been reflected in the noises recently made about the price of it coming down as a result of the dollar up-valuation. All oil prices, as your Lordships are fully aware, depend on Saudi Arabia, as they can, if they want to, flood the market and therefore force down the price of everybody else's crude oil.

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As a result of my few remarks, it seems to me that we have a three-phase situation. There is the immediate social and coal problem. Incidentally, what is the answer to importing coal? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, will comment on that. There is the medium Arab oil problem, which is allied to an acute balance-of-payments problem. Surely this balance of payments can be funded by recycled Arab money. There is a great deal of Arab money coming back into the City at the moment. Finally, we come to a situation where I think there is an element of the Royal Tank Corps motto "Through blood, mud, to the green fields beyond". We are coming to the "green fields " situation of ourselves as the Arabs or sheikhs of Europe sitting on these vast reserves of oil, unless Arab pressure, or too much greed—and I say this as somebody who has great sympathy with the Arabs—to create too much money has forced technology to bring the price of oil down, and then we could have an energy glut within 15 years.
5.56 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I want to take a line which is quite different from that taken by any other speakers yesterday or to-day, and I hope that my remarks will not be unacceptable because of that.
Newspaper placards last night carried two main headlines, according to which placard you looked at. One was "No surrender—Carrington". The other was "Railmen—send us home if you dare". There is little wonder that the public is in despair, and it is the public that I want to talk about to-day. I believe that we have reached a stage when only public opinion can work a miracle: with our help, with the help of Parliament. Eight weeks ago we had a debate on the Emergency Powers Act. In common with many other speakers I took part in that debate. As a result, I had some 80 to 90 letters—perhaps a small number, but a lot for me because I had to answer them. Of those 80 to 90 letters only eight were in disagreement with what I had said. Usually, as we all know from long experience, people are moved to write if they disagree, not if they agree. Why the change?—because the writers saw a little hope in that someone had said that Parliament as a whole should
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be seen to react to this crisis and that Parliamentary government should be upheld.
If the speech of one Back-Bencher can bring a little hope and produce even 80 to 90 letters, I want to ask your Lordships, what could we not achieve if that was done on a large scale? It is hope that people need to-day. At the moment they have no hope. Could Parliament not give it to them? Could the Opposition make a considerable sacrifice?—because it is the Opposition that has a bigger part to play here than the Government. Why? Well, my Lords, the Opposition can talk to the unions. It can talk privately to influence. It can talk publicly to give hope. I realise that to ask the Opposition to help the Government at the moment is to ask a great deal. But then a great deal is at stake, far more than the future of any political Party.
May I start with three obvious points? First, we are all entitled to something better than we are getting to-day: the general public, the unions, the Government. At least there will be unanimity on that. Secondly, we have to start from today. No amount of harping back to the past will help us out of the terrible dilemma in which the country finds itself at present. Thirdly, whether or not there should be enough money available to pay everybody what they ask, the fact remains that there is not. Yesterday the Leader of the Opposition, my noble friend Lord Shackleton, spoke about the need for a greater degree of social justice and social concern. There would be unanimity on that. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that social justice means something different to everybody. There would be unanimity on that too. But, in some respects, social justice means the same thing to most of us—in Parliament and outside.
I want to ask the House: can it really be accepted by anyone in their right mind, after the way commuters have suffered in the not-too-distant past and are suffering today, that a union leader can get up and say that the Chairman of British Rail is, and I quote, "declaring war on the union"? Is there any person who would not agree that ASLEF has declared war on rail travellers? I should like to hear the Opposition get up and say so, and say so loudly, both in Parliament and outside. Why should anyone expect to be paid if

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they refuse to work? And to state that if they are not paid when they refuse to work they will go home until not only payment for non-work is made but until their demands are met—no Government could accept that and no Government should. And what is more, the public would not expect any Government to do so, and they would not expect any Opposition to say that they should do so. From what seems evident to-day some drivers have done just that. They object to not being paid for doing nothing. They have gone home. That is industrial anarchy, and I hope Parliament will say so. I hope particularly the Opposition and the other two rail unions will say so too.
In the immediate past I would have hoped that the Government would have done more about prices, about rents, about property speculators and about making taxation fairer to each section of the community; and set in train all these things so that people could see for themselves that action had been taken. Action such as this would at least have made people feel that something was being done on the side of equality. It would have sweetened the atmosphere. Are we in the Opposition never going to stand up and admit that commuters have rights, that people have a right to their trains, their light, their heat and their power, for they pay for all these things? And have we nothing to say about their ambulances?
For the moment never mind the sins of the Government. I always understood that my Party said that it stood for the weak, for the poor and those without means of taking action, of fighting back. I think we should have stood up long ago and said that this type of industrial action, this bullying of innocent people, should cease. I expect everybody saw the letter in The Times on Tuesday from Mr. Smith of the National Union of Mineworkers. Probably everybody noted the one particular sentence in it which I thought described what the nation is going through at the moment and the utter waste of it all. The sentence was, "Fierce and heated debates on who is right—forgetting what is right". I would emphasise "who" and "what". I believe the Government have themselves to blame for much of the present trouble. They were unnecessarily abrasive towards the unions at the beginning of their term of office. But we have not much authority to comment
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here because we gave way. Anyway, the abrasiveness has reaped very bitter dividends.
What can we do now? What can both Houses of Parliament say to-day so that the country may feel that we are at least dealing with realities? First of all, on the question of the three-day week and the size of the coal stocks, it is time the politicians stopped bickering about this. I think the public has got tired of this bickering, and unless one has inside knowledge I do not think we have anything to add. So far as we know, the Central Electricity Generating Board said this action was necessary, and as I understood what came out of "Neddy" yesterday, it certainly was necessary, and I should like to leave that there.
I come secondly to the miners. In the last debate I told the House that I had worked in the Rhondda Valley in the 1930s. What I forgot to say was that I had lived with an unemployed miner and his family. That experience brought me into the Labour Party. It also gave me a respect, admiration and affection for miners and their families that I shall never lose. If only a little moderation could creep in here on both sides, and if only the miners could accept that, while they do not trust Government promises, something so big is at stake to-day that the country demands or begs, whichever word is preferred, I believe that they would come halfway to help us all. As I see it, miners have been offered as big an increase as there is money available now. Phase 3 was tailored specially to bring more to the miners than to any other workers. I am not saying that the offer is enough, but that it is all that is available now, and that is a very different matter. It must be accepted surely that the future of the mining industry is assured. Could not the more moderate miners, on the Executive and in the pits, stand up and say that they will take the increased offer to-day (large by the standards offered to other workers) if they can be given cast-iron guarantees about the future? Many suggestions are being aired about what form these cast-iron guarantees could take. Are we not talking about an investment of some £1,100 million in the industry? With just a little good will (from the N.U.M., from the Opposition and from the Government) something could be done. I think the

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nation has a right to demand that something is done by the N.U.M., by the Opposition and by the Government. Is this quite impossible? With an initial investment of £30 million guaranteed by the Government for the development of Selby alone, has all this to be thrown away? Must the extremists always win?
Thirdly, I turn to the railways. For the moment never mind the commuters. But the railways have been guaranteed £49 million for investment in their future, one such as the railways never envisaged in their wildest dreams. Has all this to be thrown away? And thrown away because one of the three unions involved says so? We are told that the other two unions are in favour of negotiation, that they represent nine-tenths of the membership. Why should one-tenth of the membership hold back the others. Is that democracy? Again, must the extremists always win?
Trying to look at this matter dispassionately, I really do not believe anyone can fail to understand that if Government, not only this Government but any Government, continue to give way when the country is held to ransom, then the floodgates will open and we shall have this all over again. I hope very much that the T.U.C. statement of to-day, and the meeting we are told is taking place to-night, will prevent those floodgates opening. My Lords, as I ventured to say eight weeks ago, as I feel more firmly than ever to-day, this question has to be decided, and it has to be decided for the benefit of democracy, for Parliamentary government, and the future of any Government of whatever Party which may be in power. An Election would settle nothing. What is wanted is that Parliament should assert itself as a whole on this industrial matter alone; and that the British people should feel, at last, that even the politicians have united to lead them out of this terrible abyss.
6.11 p.m.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, it has been a fascinating debate, and one to which it is very difficult to give a concrete and constructive approach. I have heard speeches from both sides of the House for most of the two days. Very few of them have been provocative, but I must say that the last speech I have
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just listened to, by the noble Baroness, was completely illogical for a certain point. The noble Baroness asked how we are to question what the coal stocks are; we do not know. Then the next minute she says, referring to the miners' request for an increase in money, under Phase 3, that, "This is all the money we have." How does the noble Baroness know that? How can she make a categorical statement like that, in contrast to the one which she made about the coal stocks at the power stations? As a matter of fact we know the coal stocks. If the noble Baroness will go down to the Labour Party office she will find that there are four sheets of stocks in every station in Britain. Television has been shut down from 10.30 p.m. each night to save one-tenth of a power station's output, and we have 147 power stations. I still say that the Government's action has not been thought out.
Now let us deal with the fulcrum of the problem. The fulcrum of the problem is the miners, as well as the railwaymen. Parliament must assert itself. I lived through the 1926 strike. I was alive when the 1912 and 1921 strikes occurred. I was alive when the troops were sent down to Tonypandy. How does one apply that solution to the commuters?—bless them! they do suffer as well. Are we sending troops in? How does Parliament assert itself? Do we become a corporate State? Why does the noble Baroness assume that these people who have gone on strike are all fanatics? One minute the miners are grand men; and the next minute, when it suits a speaker, they are irresponsible. You cannot have it both ways. If you want to apply Russian or Fascist methods, put in the troops to drive trains and put the troops in the mines in South Wales, as at one time was threatened. But if you do, you will have a hopeless situation. Is that the divisive situation that the noble Baroness wishes to create? It is the only way force can be applied to get the trains going. That is the only way, in the last analysis, and I think it would be the most divisive and unconstructive approach to this very difficult problem.
Now, what are the facts about the miners and the railwaymen? I will not go into it in depth, but I think the Chairman of the Railways Board, Mr. Marsh,

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made a stupid approach with his statement. It was a hard, tough—allegedly—statement; but it was not clever, it was stupid. The Railways Board are acting, in my estimation, in the same kind of arrogant way as the Prime Minister has been acting in relation to the miners.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, will my noble friend allow me to make an interjection? I cannot allow him to go unchallenged when he makes the statement that the Chairman of the Railways Board was "stupid" in doing what he should have done long before; that is, making crystal clear that if a person refuses to do a particular job, he should not be paid for that job. It is as simple as that. I am not going to argue at this point whether or not they were right to go on strike. But do not call a man stupid when he does something. The only stupid thing, if there be stupidity, was in the fact that he did not do it a fortnight earlier.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: The noble Lord agrees with me. That is what I was just going to tell the noble Lord. It was left to this occasion, and there should have been discussion—
LORD WIGG: Surely my noble friend will not be led astray by the jejune and childish intervention about the stupidity of Mr. Marsh. Those of us who know him very well know that this was absolutely true to form. He made a remark and he had not the wisdom to calculate what the consequences would be. He may have been quite right to say it, but has he improved the situation or has he made it worse? Of course he has made it infinitely worse, and very much more difficult to settle. That is why he is stupid.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: This is the point—the consequences. What are the consequences of the speech of my noble friend who has just sat down? How do you apply that?
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is there anything remarkably wrong or right in describing somebody who used to be a rebel in the Labour Party and who has managed to get £24,000 a year, as stupid or brilliant, or anything of the sort? In any event can we not, in this democratic Assembly, say what we like and think, even if it does not suit some people on this side of the House?
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I am grateful to the noble Lord, whose experience in the Ministry of Power is great. If I say something is stupid, that does not mean that I have not myself acted stupidly, too—many times. I have done so many times, and so have other noble Lords. But the point is that the consequences of this statement were not weighed before they were uttered. I have done that many a time and been sorry afterwards. There is nothing wrong with making that statement. It does not help; it exacerbates the situation.
Next, I want to look at the position of the miners in relation to Phase 3. We have made Phase 3 the law of the Medes and Persians in a fluid world, and that is nonsense. I was delighted to find that the noble Lord, Lord Alport, put that neatly, succinctly, cogently and potently to this House, so that noble Lords would understand it. Phase 3 should have been made fluid. What was the position of the miners in the 1950s and the early 1960s? Their earnings were 20 per cent. above average earnings of the rest of industry. When we came to power after the 1945 Election, the miner, as a result of the damnable punishment of the 1912, 1921, 1920 strikes of my people, was eightieth on the pay list of Britain. Under the Labour Government we lifted him to first. By 1950, he was between 12 and 20 per cent. (it varied) above average earnings on the job, if he was cutting in a pit. If he was in Ystradgynlais, and was a Rugby player, he would be lucky if he could have five years' of Rugby playing, if he was stone-cutting in arches underground. The noble Lord, Lord Mais, if he were in the Chamber, would know what I am talking about: the punishment to a man's lungs if he was cutting through the rock—never mind the anthracite coal.
By 1970, this differential had disappeared. The historic settlement after the national strike last year went some way towards restoring the differential by October, 1972. The mine workers' average earnings were £38·21, 7 per cent. above the average earnings of the country. This was still much lower than in 1950. The miners have received increases of only 6·6 per cent. and 9·9 per cent. since Wilberforce. This point has not been mentioned in the debate. Wilberforce has been a static situation since then. What justifies their exception? Nobody

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has given the figures. Output per man shift in the pits is higher now than ever in history. The output of the coalface worker, the man cutting the coal before it is shifted to the bottom of the pit or is shuttled on to the conveyor, is 148·6 cwt. per shift; that is in seven to eight hours; and he is loading that. That is a record O.M.S.—output per man shift. That has been going on since Wilberforce, and full recognition has not been given to this effort of the men at the coal face.
Your Lordships see the unfairness. The Derby miners wanted to put an advertisement in the local Press. It is a little facetious, but it is a picture of a miner. At the top it says:
"Wanted. 600 underground workers to fill vacancies in North Derbyshire pits. Free dust masks. Free goggles. Ear-muffs for excessive noise from the conveyors. Oilskins when working in water."
Some have worked in water up to their necks. My brother, who is an engineer, worked in water when they sunk Natgarw pit. He worked in water for six months and has suffered off and on ever since from rheumatic fever and rheumatoid arthritis, for which he has received nothing. That is the price that skilled men sometimes have to pay before you get to the coal. The advertisement continues:
"Respirator masks for emergencies. Chest X-rays free. Good bus services from the pits starting at 5 in the morning. Hours of work, 7¼ plus winding time. You will be on the pit 8½ hours. Good canteen before and after your shift. Death benefits if you die in service. Present basic wage: coal face, £36·79—Grade A, £36·79; Grade B, £31."—
and so on. Then at the bottom it says:
"The nation needs coal. Join the dwindling band of those prepared to dig it."
Anybody who is willing, who has the strength, if he is muttering about it, can go and try. When one South Wales paper was asked to put in that advertisement they would not do so, because despite the fact that it was meant to be facetious, it was a little more revealing than many of the speeches made in both Houses of Parliament.
My Lords, may I detain the House for just two more minutes. I speak now on a wider note. On Tuesday last week, very quietly, the Government applied their second 20 per cent. tariff cut with the Common Market. It was done quietly. What are the implications of
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that? It will help to deepen our crisis on the balance of payments. The three-day week is nothing to do with the miners not being prepared to work overtime. What kind of a world is this, that when men refuse to work overtime the rest of the country is unemployed? Everybody thinks that the miners are on strike. All that the boys are doing is having a bit more fresh air. If we want anyone to blame, we can blame both Governments, the Labour Government and the Conservative Government, for shutting the pits down so rapidly and not attracting the manpower to go into them. We have not had the manpower and we have not had a sufficient number of pits. I mentioned this point in the last debate on this subject. When I was a boy there were 60 pits in the Rhondda Valley; there are two now. They are not all uneconomic. Consequently, this problem needs deeper thought.
Another key issue of the day is the level of prices. I have in my hand a list of chairmen of 78 companies. The top one—getting about a quarter of a million pounds a year—is concerned with green stamps. What is the contribution to our economy of the issue of green stamps compared with that of a collier cutting coal? But he is getting a quarter of a million. The Government can find money for that. I can list them. There is enough money there somewhere. Hyams—what have the Government done about it? Why the inactivity? This is creating the two kinds of people in our country. People are bewildered. Prices are unprecedented. We were scoffed at in 1970 and told by Mr. Heath that if Labour got into power we should have the three shilling loaf. We have got it.
So I summarise. We floated—that was a euphemistic term for devaluation of the pound. Someone tried to point out that silly expression of witch doctors of economics about the snake in the tunnel. A more daft expression one has never heard about the realities of finance. The direct consequences of our entering the Common Market, when we were too weak to meet its repercussions, was a 20 per cent. tariff drop and overspending on overseas commitments. And at the same time as we are doing that, we are told in Figaro last week that the Prime Minister of England says that he is going

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in a joint nuclear effort with the French. The noble Lord, Lord Wigg, and others, have pointed out that you need protection; but do not let us pretend that we can be a great nuclear nation. We want to ensure that we have conventional Forces in the right places at the right time, but we should not pretend that we can play big boys in the nuclear race. And we kicked our friends in the teeth in 1967 because we were preparing to enter the Common Market—and we have since refused to review the trade agreements with Australia. What is wrong with us? Britain is losing its position; losing (I have used the word about four times in this Chamber) its charisma because there is no leadership. We hear daft expressions about "standing up to them" because the locomotive drivers have gone on strike, or because the colliers are not working overtime. What are we going to do about it? Shove soldiers into cutting coal, and put the university boys to driving engines again, as they tried to do in the days when I was being semi-educated?
As to unemployment the real fact is that the three-day week is a subtle way of helping to solve the £2,000 million balance-of-payments problem. We presented the Government, at the price of our popularity, with £1,000 million in the black—I repeat, £1,000 million. We lost our popularity, lost elections, through trying to be fair and trying to stand up to the pressures for increases in wages in relation to our abilities. But this Government have printed money. I cannot go into the problem of Special Drawing Rights, but I shall now go into this. In 1969 we had 7 million days of strikes. Since the Industrial Relations Act we have had 24 million. That is the result of the Industrial Relations Act. It has nothing to do with "vicious members of the trade union movement". It is the repercussions upon them because of rents and everything else. The constructive trade union movement, to which tributes have been paid, when the Government were introducing Phase 3, begged the Prime Minister to do six things. Nothing has been done. One was to restore collective bargaining. The second was to have subsidies to keep prices of foods relative to people's income. We are again getting rickets and caries in teeth among school children. The third was effective price controls. The fourth was a rent moritorium. The
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fifth was to bring old-age pensions up to £10 or £16. The sixth was to shift the burden towards capital and high-incomes taxation and property speculation. Instead of that, we gave back £300 million to be put in the pockets of the speculators.
Then the Government were presented with this Cabinet Paper: The Future of London as an International Financial Centre. We have lost; and if this goes on under Mr. Heath we shall lose the sterling area. We have lost it. We have thrown away the Commonwealth. I beg noble Lords to get this document, The Future of London as a Financial Centre. It is worth a seminar and a discussion in this House. Paragraph 7 in that document says this:
"it is sometimes said that, whatever its level of direct exports, the City may be misusing its share of scarce national resources."
If my noble friend wants to know why money has to be printed he can look to the City.
"There are two arguments here: the first is that other sectors might have used the same resources to make an even greater contribution to the balance of payments; and the second is that the City's successful record as an exporter may have been achieved at the expense of economic growth for the country as a whole. This second opinion might become more fashionable."—
when the balance of payments problem is a little less critical than it is now. So this excellent study goes on, and the one person who would not give all the facts—using a personification—was the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street. I thought we had nationalised the old witch.
LORD WIGG: Bitch!
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: All right, my Lords—bitch. I did not say that; I was more polite. I thought we had taken her into public ownership; but she is a law unto herself, much more than any trade union movement. Summing up, I am not asking for a General Election in the sense of just saying that an Election would solve it. I wish the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, well. He has a great problem on his hands. I have spoken for longer than I usually do, and I apologise; I have been speaking for 20 minutes. I follow the noble Lord, Lord Alport. Although my advice may not be accepted and it may be thought unworthy, I think it would be wise, because the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is a

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great gentleman and he has great abilities, if he severed himself from the Chairmanship of the Tory Party at the present moment so that there could be no gibes about Party differences. While I think the gentleman is too noble to introduce cheap Party politics into this difficult situation, it would be a gesture that would show that he meant what he said about making this a non-political approach.
LORD WIGG: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend will allow me to say that although he and I have spent many years together in politics, he is making a mistake in thinking that politics is a vice. Of course it is not; it is a virtue to be practised. The reason why I call for a General Election is that if the Government are intent upon seeing their policy through then they and the country must face the consequences, and therefore the people of this country should be given a choice. If they want a statutory wages policy then they must meet the opposition of the miners, and the choice should be not with this House but with the people of this country. It should be the people of this country who decide.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I was only saying that I was not asking for an Election; I was not saying that there is not a case for it. You must look at the connotation of the phraseology that have used. I am not asking for an Election, but if my noble friend is I will support him, as I shall support him eventually in his Common Market argument. I am trying to be kindly to a Government that are in a hell of a mess. I have lived through all this before. Noble Lords need not laugh about it. I have seen people commit suicide. I spoke with A. J. Cook in 1926 during the General Strike, and in the valleys it was nothing for somebody to drink a bottle of carbolic acid. Indeed, in one village life finished altogether; it got so gloomy that even the coroner did himself in at the end.
I think the debate has been worth while, but the Government must themselves realise that the three-day week will bring Britain to its doom if it is persisted in for as long as some suggest might be the case.
6.35 p.m.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, it has occurred to me before now that to harness
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even a small part of the oratorical power of the noble Lord who has just spoken would go some way towards solving this country's energy crisis! I have listened to most of the speeches during these two days, and I have not heard about the one commodity that we really have run out of, which is time. Even the word "crisis" is misleading, with its implication of an episode with an identified beginning and an identified end, after which things bounce back to normal. The time crisis which this combination of factors has swerved our economy into means that nothing will be quite the same again. Of course, I dare say that a stroll in a Surrey lane in two years' time will not feel much different than it did last summer. There will be a shade less chance of meeting a private car, one or two fewer aeroplane trails in the sky, possibly the need to paint fences will obviously have been put off for another season; but, on the whole, it will take a good eye and a retentive memory to identify the outward signs of zero growth. But a time crisis does not just happen. We are living through the physical symptoms of material shortages, the collapse of money, the physical symptoms of exponential trends when those trends have been running against us for long enough. Here, now, we are standing and looking at the steamroller arithmetic of compound rates.
Let me make a related point, one which I have never seen spelt out, perhaps because it is too naive, too obvious. If one day is removed from a company's production schedule unexpectedly there is no way in which that company's output can be reduced by less than one-third of 1 per cent. in that year. If three days are wiped out in a year a company will lose 1 per cent. of all that it could have produced in a year. I warned your Lordships that it was a simple point, but what this does to growth rates is also just as simple. Lose 15 days in a year and you wipe out a 5 per cent. annual growth rate. Meanwhile, your international trading partners are coasting along on 6 or 7 per cent. growth rates, giving them small but exponential balance of payments advantages, even before your own catastrophic events. These trading partners are only too pleased to supply the capital to buy the bargain bankrupt companies or the capital goods which make products because our

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machine tool industry has finally disappeared. And so on. Fifteen days is all it takes. The loss of production because of the present situation will be equivalent to 15 days of total inactivity by, I think, next Wednesday. Your Lordships may not appreciate the extent to which our capital investment programmes are being satisfied by imports.
I am afraid that in the next few minutes I must quote an unhealthy number of figures, but I hope your Lordships will bear with me. Between 1963 and 1967 imports as a percentage of the investment went from 18·4 per cent. to 24·6 per cent. This is 6 per cent. on 18 per cent. plus one-third. In the next five years they went from 29·7 per cent.—I am calculating the last nine months of 1972—to 40·3 per cent. This is 10 per cent. on 30 per cent., plus one-third. This is an exponential growth.
I have always disliked the "I told you so" speech when made in this or in the other place, especially if it comes from people in no position to know all the facts, or precious little to change the way things are, but it is tempting and I fall into the temptation. I must refer back to a little over a year and a half ago, when I said some less than happy things about the balance of payments in engineered products. Quite rightly, I was charmingly slapped down by my Front Bench pointing out that each year succeeded the other for record revenues earned by engineered products sold abroad. What I was trying to put over at that time—I failed, but I will try once again—was that this must be so, but there was a point in the future, not too far away at that time, when a critical moment is reached and the balance of payments in these goods starts to dive. These were not fancies, but projections of the simplest kind, using known figures. Of course each year industry exported a little more in cash terms. This is a virtually illusory figure because of the loss of the value of money, but the rate of change of change was against us. It has been for years.
Two further factors were in the mix. I wish to quote again from the NEDO papers which were my sources 18 months ago. We were importing at a value of £3,000 a ton and exporting engineered sector products at a value of £600 a ton. It would be difficult to think of a more
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vulnerable marketing situation to be in, implying as it does that one's main customers are relatively unsophisticated. Unhappily, unsophisticated customers become sophisticated and are quite soon making their own goods worth £600 a ton. The other factor is that there is a cascade, or what one might call a domino effect in capital goods production and demand relationships. When, for instance, a machine tool maker is wiped out of his export markets there is likely to be a sharp drop in home market demand following shortly after. This country survives by value-adding. When we do this less well than our competitors economically the results are horrible. We are not good at adding value. The figures with regard to machine tools that I gave a moment ago are only one aspect of the problem; it goes much wider and deeper than that.
I am afraid I fall again into the temptation of giving figures. The value added per employee in manufacturing industry for America is 15,500 dollars, for Germany 9,500 dollars, for this country 4,500 dollars. There are two ways of improving the ratio, a higher added value per unit output which is a matter of technology or perhaps of pricing, or lower employment per unit output, that is, higher productivity. We cannot neglect either element. Still on the subject of capital plant, and machine tools in particular, there now exists convincing research which demonstrates that selling price is not the most influential factor in purchasing decisions. The smooth curves of sales in these areas, irrespective of currency evaluations, have always indicated this, but now there is more direct proof. I genuinely did not understand a recent Government announcement that things were healthy in engineering exports because, if I heard it correctly, the tonnage was at a record level. If I understood the statement aright, I did not see how this related to foreign exchange revenue or profitability, or much else, except that we sold heavier goods this year than last.
This country needs more exports than ever before. Currency depreciation is not a critical factor for increased capital goods exports. Prices are relatively less important than performance, service and delivery. I am quoting truisms. Not everyone would agree on which particular aspect of the problem is the main villain of the piece, but perhaps the least controversial

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troversial of the many possible explanations is in fact the major cause of low productivity. I am referring to low investment. I have another set of comparative statistics which help to demonstrate my point; they are fixed investments as a percentage of Gross National Product. For this country it is 18 per cent., for Germany and France 16 per cent., and for Italy 35 per cent. One should not overstate the significance of these national aggregates because, being averages, they tend to cover up great differences between one sector and another. Furthermore, the problem is not just simply that the quantum of investment is too low in Britain. It is also a question of the directions in which it is employed and its productivity—the marginal efficiency of capital, as Keynes called it. Not only has investment been too low in Britain, but we have not used it efficiently enough in both the public and private sectors. What is more, largely because of the inconsistency of politically-motivated Government policies, our investment rate has been far too variable.
But I am beginning to stray from the Motion, and I want to concentrate for a few minutes on the energy question, because it is here that hugely expensive decisions will be made in the next few months, perhaps even weeks. Let us first consider oil. I think at last the world has got the message that cheap oil has gone forever. The world has another more important message, too, in that cheap everything has gone forever—tin, copper, the historic proteins fish and meat, fossil hydrocarbon fuels, and a lot else. But obviously at this moment the ingenuity of the industrialised nation has to be focused on oil.
The shared crisis in all industrialised countries is a crisis of oil shortage, and rising oil prices. The Middle East producers have reduced oil production, by how much is uncertain, and most industrialised countries have an energy gap, a fundamental constraint on their ability to maintain output levels and patterns. We do not know how long this will persist, but the immediate effect must be damaging to world industrial production and trade. "Slow growth at best" is the realistic economic expectation for the next two years, but it leaves aside the larger question of what the Arabs hope to gain
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by their actions, or how the strategic relationships between America, Russia and Western Europe may have been affected.
In terms of oil prices, all industrialised countries face massive increases in their import bills and increasing inflationary pressures on internal costs. Apart from their broad agreement that deflationary policies are inappropriate, the industrialised countries have not got a common policy for dealing with the situation. The international monetary and financial machinery is in pretty poor shape for dealing with problems of such unprecedented scale. The reports of bilateral agreements or negotiations between France and Saudi Arabia, Germany and Iran, and ourselves and several Gulf States suggest common policies on oil procurement are pipe-dreams. Each for himself seems to be the order of the day. Perhaps that is realistic. What will the Arabs do with their money? We cannot afford to let such huge amounts of hot money go slopping around the world money markets. It is in this matter, not only in physical supplies of oil, that the industrialised countries need common policies and effective machinery.
In terms of oil quantity we have all had a bad fright, and the hunt for alternatives is now very seriously on, with almost a war priority. I hope that the House will bear with me if I quote in detail some projections by the Hudson Institute for an oil energy programme. Inevitably, most of the items in the programme are especially relevant to American needs and productive capacity, but many of them can be transferred into our own context. I should like to think, for instance, that this country will be a major beneficiary of the development of the Canadian tar sands, which I have not heard mentioned in this debate so far. As your Lordships probably know, between Alberta and Edmonton there is a 19,000 square mile region with tar sand deposits which can be made to yield well over 300,000 million barrels. The acceptable techniques for recovering this are known, as are the production costs. The Canadian Corporation G.C.O.S. opened a 45,000 barrel a day plant six years ago. The immediate allocation of development resources could see a production rate of the order of 1,000 million barrels a year by 1980 at something not very much over 5 dollars a barrel.

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World-wide total known reserves of crude oil are roughly 600,000 million barrels, two-thirds of which are in the Middle East. For the production rate I have just quoted, massive sums of money are needed, of course, and (again I must acknowledge the Hudson Institute) a full-scale Canadian tar sand programme could absorb investment of the order of 2,000 million dollars at present exchange rates. I am deliberately concentrating on what I might call the rather esoteric side of oil production, because the topic of North Sea oil is, first of all, obvious, and, secondly, has been hammered into the ground in the last two days in this House. One scheme for this is that the sum required should be raised in three equal parts from Europe, Japan and America, with the partners having identical status and guarantees. The central point I am trying to make is that the oil is there but the investment cost is enormous. Resources must be shifted from consumption to investment to accomplish what we need.
So far as oil prices are concerned, the Arabs have done this country a service by calling attention to the value of our North Sea reserves. These, before the end of this decade, and at prices which seem likely to rise further, will give us a real basis for prosperity. I make no bones about it, my Lords: we must at all costs in the shorter term hang on to ownership and control of these supplies and give this development absolute priority in terms of investment—not just physical investment, but in manpower, skills, research and development.
In a framework of OPEC crude stabilising at 7 dollars a barrel or so (in which I find myself disagreeing with my noble friend to the tune of 1½ dollars), at least three sources of hydrocarbon energy become cheap, even with extraction techniques which are known and used at this moment. While still with fossil fuel energy, we in this country are going to have to accept that production and storage must be regarded as a single idea rather than storage being the poor relation of the production/consumption cycle. I can picture storage of oil, coal and gas uprated to five or six times the levels we presently plan at, even acknowledging the adverse finances that would come from carrying such stocks.
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Still on energy, I should like to switch from getting it from where we know we can to the greater prizes of the energy which we hope to get from where we think we can; and I am now referring to this country's atomic programme. The points I want to make on this are few. Nuclear fission reactors are now in the same cost to output league with conventionally fuelled power stations. Ten per cent. of this country's electricity is nuclear generated, and this fraction looks like rising faster than expected because of recent events. I am entirely convinced that the medium-term fission reactor—that is to say, those to be built eight or ten years from now—will be the high temperature reactor, and I am only sorry that so much money will have to be spent in the intervening years on fission stations whose efficiency we know is technically obsolete.
The hot reactor, producing outlet gas temperatures of 900 degrees or over, will completely alter the role of the fission station in the energy mix. I am indebted to other sources for a list of possible applications, which include the production of hot hydrogen and electricity for nuclear-powered steelworks, production of hydrogen, and a new extraction tool for low grade fossil fuel deposits. In the hot reactor we have a pledge of abundant energy for the time scale from 10 to probably 50 years from now. Coming up over the horizon is also the fusion reactor and all that that promises.
I regret that the effort put into sponsored fusion research is so trifling when, in the longest view, fusion-generated energy must entirely predominate. The annual reports of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority show that even on paper less was spent on the programme in 1971–72 than in 1966–67, the figures being £4,380,000 compared to £4,560,000 five years previously. The cut in the number of scientific staff from 200 to 140 is an even more pointed expression of this or any other Government's priorities. Admittedly, in March of last year it was announced that the activities at Culham were to be boosted over the next three years by £3 million, but this money will be drawn from Euratom, to which this country is only one of several contributors. I know that it is not entirely a fair comparison, but the perspectives of this cash allocation of an extra £1 million

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a year in that area of research can be ranged against the Post Office commitments under threshold agreements. When these take a grip, the Post Office will be in for an extra £8 million a month.
Turning away from energy and looking, as the terms of the Motion allow me to look, at the impact on industry of the cutbacks in time and materials brought about by the crisis, I find myself deriving some generalisations which again are obvious but also not said out loud often enough. The working man is more important in a capital intensive situation than in a labour intensive one. The employer is much more vulnerable in a capital intensive situation. British Steel, for instance, only breaks even on an 80 per cent. use of capital and goes neatly into loss at 75 per cent. This alone, with steel at 60 per cent. of capacity yesterday, easing lower, will ensure that the Corporation will have to amortise a loss for this year which could be reflected even up to two years from now. Virtually every manufacturing activity is at risk in some way: steel especially so because of the multiplier effects of successive degrees of shutdown.
The noble Lord, Lord Balogh, made the point yesterday that most pay disputes in this country can be traced to questions of differentials. This is a point of view I share, yet the machinery of response to pay claims is still hung in a framework of other, older assumptions. I should like to draw the attention of the House on this subject to some neat proposals made by Lord Brown—Wilfred Brown, that is—for a coherent structure of recognised and continuously agreed differentials. It is a truth that it is much more difficult to redistribute wealth in a static rather than a growth situation, which leads me to another personal conviction which must have showed through everything that I have said so far. We must not abandon the principle of growth. Each tenth of a per cent. lifts our probability of survival. What is adding to our difficulties, of course, is that we are also having to absorb a number of extremely subtle social changes at the same time. Countries cope with social changes in characteristic ways. Ours seems to be to talk incessantly about them and construct laws to pull them into the framework of our national ethos. Most of
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these laws, if not all, are in response to developments that have not been planned.
When confronted with a situation such as we have now, when every event seems to exacerbate the deterioration, the only course for industries, as well, is a responsive one. A noble Lord yesterday remarked that our economy was now in uncharted waters. I would add to that and say that we have even had to lock away the sailing manual. There are a number of national economic models in existence—I would cite the National Institute, Cambridge, Southampton, London Business School and the Treasury. I hope that these are being used to construct alternative short-term scenarios on which to base plans which shift action from response to initiation at this time.
The fashionable idea of the post-industrial society has generated some very broad views of the possible directions nations can take. Professor Robert Heilbroner makes a case, though, that some basic patterns of existing society may change far less than many expect. He shows that the industrial factory worker represents a little more than a quarter of the total work force of industrial countries, the great movements in labour taking place between agriculture and the service sector. This relatively stable proportion I find encouraging when one considers the need to plan the long-range emphasis of one industrial activity against another. For the present, I have to leave your Lordships though with what I can only express, in the terms of this Motion, as a childish paradox—that things are as bad as they seem, and things are not as bad as they seem.
7.2 p.m.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, I have only a few comments to add to this long debate. If it has done nothing else it has illuminated the curious, troubled times we live in, for we are still suffering from the shock treatment we have been given by the Arab countries. The immediate effect of a sudden, unprecedented price rise in oil is grim and traumatic in itself, but we should not be overwhelmed by this. Already the Secretary of State for Energy has endorsed the more optimistic noises coming from various experts in the energy field about our future energy prospects. Partly our panicky reactions are due to

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the way the economic crisis was ushered in, with a massive Christmas spending spree. This was immediately followed by the disruption of the three-day working week, ordered without consultation. And the necessity for speedy action (even though this was said by the Secretary of State), does not excuse this lack of consultation. Altogether it is not surprising that many of us feel that something has gone wrong with the Government's steering mechanism. We are also baffled by the kind of self-hypnosis among Government Ministers—the repetition and incantation of Phase 3—while we watch, helpless drifting towards the prospect of 4 million unemployed if the miners' dispute is not settled soon.
The Prime Minister has said that the problems of the miners are not unique, but no-one can deny that at this moment they are very special—and not for sentimental reasons only. We all want a curb on inflation, though no-one can give a guarantee about this. Settling with the miners is surely a first step towards curbing inflation. Surely if the miners' wage claim was settled, and we obtained the coal that we needed, this would more quickly put a curb on inflation. The Government keep harping on the generosity of the offer to the miners—the highest, they say, that has ever been made. Maybe it is the highest offer, but perhaps it is not high enough in present circumstances. This offer might have made sense before the oil débâcle, but not now.
But, my Lords, is the offer really so generous? It is difficult to unravel, from percentages, the exact wages paid in pounds, shillings and pence. Mr. Roy Mason's figures have not been seriously challenged. The new offer brings a married underground worker, working 7½ hours a day, five days a week, just under £30 a week; with take-home pay of £27. And a skilled man at wallface—a dangerous occupation—the Government offer brings him up to just under £40 a week. My Lords, a secretary, or even a girl typist, can command this wage today, so let us not speak about "generous offers".
Mr. Whitelaw, who has a great reputation for the conciliation he displayed in Northern Ireland, where he did a wonderful job, seems to be trapped with his colleagues within Phase 3. A way must
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be found for Mr. Whitelaw, the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers, to get together in consultation. Mr. Len Murray, the General Secretary of the T.U.C., has opened the door for conciliation and consultation. These are the keystones of industrial negotiations, and this is what industrial negotiations are all about. I hope that the Prime Minister will grasp this opportunity to get out of the impasse. I hope that Mr. Barber will be silent and not seek confrontation, for he might take note that face-saving for the Government will be a very expensive exercise.
Finally, my Lords, we acknowledge the vigour and the ability of our new Secretary of State for Energy. We wish him well in his tough assignment. He will have to conserve his own energy, and I hope that he will not have too many sleepless nights. I do not think that he will be able to relax by counting sheep: I fear he might be kept awake counting the number of miners who have been leaving the mines at a rate of 15,000 a year—a sombre thought.
7.9 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, if there is an advantage in speaking from this Bench it is that perhaps the Bishops are the only people in this House who, even if they do not represent a constituency, come from some sort of a geographical constituency. I have about 3 million people in South London. This inevitably means that one meets different sorts of people nearly every day. If one goes to South London one finds everything possible from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich. One deals personally with a great many people who are on either side of the political fence, and this helps one to remember that they are people. I think that it is very important at this stage not to think of them as groups of pro-trade unionists or anti-trade unionists but as people, most of whom are as patriotic as anybody else.
I am reminded that on Christmas Eve in my own cathedral I was taking the service and the Lord Chancellor was giving the address. I am sure he would be the first to say what a moving occasion that was. We had in the cathedral nearly 1,000 people, many of whom had been very strongly politically divided; but we knew that on that occasion

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they were all brothers and comrades in the best sense of the words. When I go from, let us say, Deptford to Reigate I ask myself: what is the real problem? I wonder whether, fundamentally, the argument really is about Phase 3 and the demands of the miners and the railwaymen. These are only symptoms of something which goes very much deeper. The argument really falls into two parts: first, what sort of society is our goal; and, secondly, what methods should be used to achieve that society?
Over Christmas I read the second volume of Michael Foot's biography of Aneurin Bevan, and I was deeply impressed when I read again what I heard him so often say when he was one of my dearest friends: that the real test which confronted this country was whether we were to go forward by reason and persuasion and argument on the assumption that we as a nation had come of age and we were mature people; or whether we were to go forward by the methods of dictatorship. That is the question which confronts us to-day. Domestically, we are in a state of emergency which is as grave as any of us have known, and we have to decide, perhaps within a comparatively short time, what will be the method. Are we to do what Aneurin Bevan said and, as mature people, make changes by reason and persuasion, or are we to become desperate and use desperate methods?
We can understand what is happening if we look abroad in relation to the oil crisis. Let us forget all about the Arabs and think about Nigeria, because there the question is pinpointed. That is a country with which, as a churchman, I have been fairly closely associated for 30 years or more. The real question which the Nigerians ask themselves is: "What sort of society is our goal and what sort of society is the goal of the West? Why is it that for so many years we have been helping to prop up the West so that they could have a high standard of living? Why should they live at our expense?" That may be unfairly put, but that is putting the question in shorthand. It is no good being annoyed about it, because that is what some of their best people, people whom we would all greatly respect, are asking. I know that over the years my own
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Church has contributed thousands of pounds to Nigeria, to help them with education and food, and to improve their standard of living. But they now ask: "Why should we be dependent any more upon charity? If we ran our own businesses efficiently, paying our people a proper wage and improving our own standard of living, we should no longer be dependent upon the charity of the West, and the West really must stand on its own feet without depending upon our cheap labour and our cheap oil." I give that illustration, my Lords, because if we look at the question in that way it may help us to understand the feelings of thousands of people in South London.
It is always rather difficult to carry with one in an argument those who feel that very unfair demands are being made by one section of society. I would therefore beg your Lordships to bear with me and try to see matters from the other point of view. Some of your Lordships will say, "Yes, but since the 1930s there have been immense strides forward and society is so much more just than it was." I began my ministry in the time of the most desperate unemployment, when hundreds of people were out on the streets; and of course conditions have changed. We are now a Welfare State and most of those appalling conditions have gone. Even so, the problem remains of the two nations in one country. If your Lordships question that statement, I ask you to be tolerant and to allow me to mention one or two facts.
First, the richest 7 per cent. of British taxpayers own 84 per cent. of the nation's wealth. The remaining 16 per cent. is scattered among the other 93 per cent. of the population. The gap still widens because the "haves" sink their wealth into land and shares and works of art, all of which will increase in value. But if the "have-nots" can save at all they put their cash into slow-growing savings accounts. Behind this arithmetic lies an unhappy economic landscape. Few are starving, but there are millions of people eking out desperately meagre and under-privileged lives. At one end of the scale there are extravagance, riches and comfort: at the other end there are poverty, hardship and squalor.
There must also be a new look at the accumulation of personal capital wealth,

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which is so astutely spread among the families of the rich so as to make a mockery of death duties. Let us put ourselves in the position of those who are experiencing poverty and hardship. What could our personal reaction be to a system which allows fortunes to be made by playing around with pieces of paper? What is to be made of the Lonrho affair? If we were homeless, what would be our attitude to Centre Point, to a system which allows a man to keep land neutral and, by so doing, increase his capital from £5 million to £50 million or £55 million? I say without any emotion—I hope as an Englishman and as a Christian—that Centre Point is a cenotaph to materialistic obscenity.
Secondly, not long ago the Plowden Report showed the danger of a two-nation educational system. There are secondary schools where there is a bare 100 to 1 chance of a pupil reaching university But if one can afford £1,000 a year for private education, the chance is over 2 to 1. It is schools such as the latter which still provide Oxford and Cambridge with one-third of their entrants. I ask your Lordships to imagine that you are a child starting your life and being compelled to go to a large secondary school where the conditions are so deplorable that there is a turnover of 100 staff within 12 months—and such a school is known to me within two miles of this place. Contrast that, my Lords, with what happens if you are born into a monied family and your parents can pick any school because they can afford to pay the bill. Is this the sort of justice which is compatible with the ethics of a just society; the sort of society which I believe all of us in this House, irrespective of Party, really want?
Then, thirdly, there is the Health Service. According to a report in a newspaper not long ago, there is in Somerset a girl, now aged 14, who has been on the waiting list for an operation on her tonsils since she was 5–9 years ago. As the doctor says, the operation could be done immediately if she had the cash. In fact, your Lordships see, there is a double standard of treatment, one for the rich and another for the poor. With the rich, it is not only jumping the hospital waiting queues but often getting medical care. When the National Health Service was set up soon after the war the Minister
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believed that everyone, whatever their income, would get equal rights to good health. This is no longer true, if it ever was true. Nobody knows how many fee-paying patients there are in Britain, though BUPA and the Private Patients' Plan accounts for 3½ million. We clergy should be particularly sensitive to this situation because we have our own nursing home and because, by reason of an historical generosity to the clergy on the part of the medical profession, we often get the benefits of the privileged minority without having to pay for it; and nobody knows that better than myself, who has so often been on the receiving end, having operations.
Then the fourth point is leisure. Last year, eight million Britishers went abroad, spending £7 million: yet I could take your Lordships to a house in Bermondsey where there lives a family who had only a day at Southend by way of holiday. There are three children in this family, and I will call the father "Dick". Dick brings home £21 a week. Now you cannot go even to Benidorm (and who would want to go there?) or to Butlin's on that amount. I know it is only a minority who are in such straightened circumstances, but it does not detract from my argument. I could go on with examples, but I finish with just one—housing. I will give your Lordships just three very brief illustrations. I had a priest who for health reasons had to give up his parish and take a secular job. For this he received £22 a week. I found him last week living in one room, with access to a kitchen, for £15 a week. How in heaven's name do you maintain a family, or even yourself, and clothe yourself, when you have to pay £15 a week for one room? I could give your Lordships that sort of illustration time and time again from my diocese. I mention this one because it concerns a priest who is a member of my own diocese.
Let me take your Lordships to another one. I went into a house in South Lambeth—19 rooms and 19 families! Just imagine what it means! It is so easy for the bishops and the clergy to talk about the sacredness of family life: it is very difficult to work out family life in any sacred sort of way when you are living hugger-mugger, with perhaps seven or ten people in one room. My third example is this. There are people, including

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Members of your Lordships' House, who are deeply concerned with the homeless. Indeed, it was as the result of the efforts of the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod, that I managed to hand over to the society in which she is so interested, and for which she and the late Mr. Iain Macleod did so much, St. Mary's Church at Christmas. I went down to this church, immediately outside the Archbishop's Palace in Lambeth, about two days before Christmas. I do not know exactly how many people were there, but they numbered about 300 or 400. Money poured in; Christmas fare poured in. The noble Baroness's friends ran it, and the support was wonderful. I am sure it was of tremendous help and encouragement. My Lords, I am not just trying to make an emotional appeal, but when I have lain in my comfortable bed in Bishop's House at night during the past fortnight I have said to myself, "Where are all those people now, since this church has had to be closed?" This was merely a five-day event. What we do know is that there are 7,000 to 8,000 people homeless each night in London. This is the society in which we live.
My Lords, I go back to where I started. What sort of a society is our goal, and what methods are to be used to achieve that society? I do not think anything is going to be achieved by blackguarding one another. I am delighted to hear that to-night the T.U.C. is likely to go to Downing Street, If people will meet as people and make up their minds that some of the things which exist in our society simply must go, even if it means that we, who are probably among the privileged, have to accept a lower standard of living, then I think there may be some hope. It so happens that yesterday I made my annual New Year call on the Mayor of Southwark. He said to me, "You know, Bishop, you have been here nearly 15 years and I do not think we have ever given you the arms of the borough". I said, "That is so"; and he said, "We should like to make a present of this to you, from myself and the council". I took it with pleasure. When I got back to my house I looked at it, and underneath the arms there were these words, "United to Serve". I cannot think of any better clarion call than that. People say we
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want some new great leader to lead this country. I simply do not believe it. People have got to discover the leadership in their own hearts; they have got to follow that which they know to be true. My hope and prayer is that the people of this country, who are basically deep patriots and love their country, will find a way through, to lead us to a better and nobler society, where men can live together in dignity and with hope.
7.27 p.m.
LORD NOEL-BUXTON: My Lords, my intention is to be extremely brief, Moving about Westminster this morning I kept getting into my mind a sentence in a letter from the then Dean of Salisbury to John Constable, in which he said:
"At all costs, Constable, avoid anxiety. It works on the stomach worse than arsenic".
I almost wonder in fear whether I have anything to say at this point, after this deeply interesting debate; and I realise the acute difficulty which faces anybody. I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for his straight-looking and clear courage. I think there are at the moment a lot of difficult psychological, but very subtle matters, For instance, directly I heard the phrase about engine drivers "being sent home" if they were not prepared reasonably to drive an engine, I immediately thought that that was brewing for trouble, just by the sheer phraseology of it, almost as if they were schoolchildren. I mean, they do not have to be "sent home". I think these are important points. Then, I think that in Ministerial broadcasts there is perhaps a little too much of the "they" approach—for example, "I am sure that they", meaning the British public, "will appreciate so-and-so", when it is all very much your Lordships, and millions of families in threes and fours at the other end of the camera.
I feel there is much more bewilderment than hopelessness. I am sure there is no hopelessness of any sort. There is a sort of doubt as to who is on the bridge of the ship, and what they actually look like. I very much appreciated the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, especially when he made the point that we do not necessarily want more and more oil. I felt that it was almost potentially a blessing in disguise, and a chance to reappraise ourselves.

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This is not the time—and this is about my last sentence—to raise issues beyond the black rocks that face our ship, but I feel that one of these is sheer size of population. When I think that all round your Lordships' House here there live literally four times the population of New Zealand, I feel that some very new, imaginative ascendancy of thought is vital, and I am sure we will get it. In conclusion, to quote quickly what I think is a very relevant passage from Emerson's speech in 1847 in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, which I am sure is well known to some of your Lordships:
"I feel in regard to this aged England, pressed upon by transitions of trade and competing populations. I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before. Indeed, with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, and that in storm of battle and calamity she has a secret vigour and a pulse like cannon".
7.30 p.m.
LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I hope that the splendid quotation that we have just heard is still true to-day. I shall not detain your Lordships for long, because much of what I wanted to say has been said. I think, most importantly, that the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, said almost precisely what I wanted to say, and she said it far better than I would have been able to. The noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, also covered many of the points that I would have put to your Lordships.
I feel that I must take up something that was said by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. I agree entirely with his sentiments; but while I think that we must all be fully aware of what one might call the current statistics of the people less well privileged within this land, let alone elsewhere, I think also that it is important to view those sort of statistics against what they would have been (shall we say?) 50 years ago, or more especially 80 years ago, and to take into account the fact that they are very much better than they would have been 50 years ago because, on the whole, the country has worked as one unit during the intervening years. Though some people may have prospered more than others, the fact that they have done so has contributed to the prosperity of everybody. I think this is a very difficult balance to work out. When, at any given
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time, one examines what is exacerbating differences of opinion within our community, one is liable Ito say: "Well, of course, it is wicked that Mr. So-and-So should have done terribly well when there are lots of Mrs. So-and-Sos who have done frightfully badly." And we forget that because Mr. So-and-So has done so well it has helped the Mrs. So-and-Sos to do much better than their grandmothers.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, but may I ask whether he is aware that experts in the matter of poverty have shown that as some people have become richer so the poorer people have become poorer? They have not become richer as the result of the rich becoming richer.
LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness that within the last fifty years I have not met a beggar in the streets in London such as I used to meet before the war. Then there were beggars who had nothing to fall back on. There are differences, and I think we must acknowledge this. The important thing, the key to it—and here I entirely agree with the right reverend Prelate—is that we should all pull together.
My Lords, to me there are two sad things about this debate. One is that, on the whole, noble Lords opposite have been absolutely emphatic in their view that the problems can all be solved by the Government, if you like, giving in to the miners. Almost without exception this has been the view of noble Lords opposite. Very few, if any, have even suggested that the problems might be solved if the miners were to give in. This is just because it is a sort of confrontation, and I suggest to your Lordships that it is a confrontation which may well have been organised. If it has been organised, it should be just as possible to go the other way. Taking it entirely basically, there is no good reason why the miners should not accept what has been offered to them. It seems to me to be a matter of pride. Perhaps noble Lords will agree with me—this does not go only for the miners; it goes for us all—that a great deal of our troubles stem from pride, and it would be very much better if somehow we could get away from that. However, I find it disappointing

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that, with the possible exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, with whom I so closely agree, speakers from the Benches opposite do not give consideration to the possibility that if there is to be flexibility it might come from the miners instead of from the Government.
The other thing that disappoints me and which has disappointed me now fox some years—certainly for two years—is that I do not believe the Government have appreciated the distrust which they have created in the minds of trade unionists by the actions which they took some two or three years ago. This was touched on by various speakers, but I think it is not a point which the Government take as seriously as they should. I truly believe that, whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, the fact that, in a sense, they rushed through the Industrial Relations Act was a very grave mistake. I would hasten to add that at the time I agreed with what the Government were doing and I supported them in all that they did. But, looking at it in retrospect, and after talking with trade union friends, I think that though there are certain facets of the Industrial Relations Act, particularly those relating to protecting the position of the individual, which I think most people would agree needed to be enacted, on the whole the main features of the measure called for a change in attitude. It is my experience that when you expect and ask a body of people to change their attitude, whether it be a noble Lord trying to persuade a high financier to change his attitude or whether it be somebody else trying to persuade a trade unionist to change his attitude, it is not something which can be done overnight.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to interrupt. He regretted that noble Lords on this side of the House had not been as constructive as he thought they might have been. In that I think he is wrong. But when he speaks about the Industrial Relations Act and recalls that he supported it, I hope he will remember that when that measure was before the House, as happened also with the Housing Finance Act, we on these Benches gave serious warnings that the Government
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were creating the very atmosphere that now exists.
LORD MOTTISTONE: Yes, my Lords, indeed. That, of course, is what one would expect noble Lords opposite to do and it is perfectly fair. What I am trying to say to the Government from these Benches is: "Please do not get carried away by the thought that all you have to do is to appear conciliatory in public, and to organise a series of meetings at wherever you organise them in order to get through to the vast majority of the people in this country who are in a working situation. You will have to do a bit more." My Lords, this is neither the time nor the place to put across just what more should be done, but the Government will have to do quite a lot more to gain the people's confidence because there is no doubt—I regret this as much as anyone, because go with this Government in practically all they do; so far as I am concerned practically every act they do is an honourable one with which I agree—that there are large numbers of people who view practically every action of the Government with great suspicion. I think this a very unfortunate situation and one to which a great deal of thought must be given in order that it may be put right. So, my Lords, I ask you to bear these two points in mind. Let us have some flexibility from noble Lords on the Benches opposite in relation to their thinking about the current crisis, and let us have some humility from my noble friends on the Government Front Bench.
7.40 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I like to maintain the traditions of debate, and therefore I should like to make two comments on the very sincere speech by the noble Lord. Lord Mottistone, to which we have just listened. He suggested that the conditions described by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of South-wark, are very different from what they were in the past, bad as they are to-day, and that that change has been due to co-operation between all classes and all Parties in our community. I wish that were true. I have been active for more than 60 years in seeking to end poverty, and of course it is quite true that conditions were very much worse when I first stood as a Socialist candidate for a local council. There was no unemployment

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benefit, no feeding of hungry school-children; people were working in their homes in sweated trades under conditions which one would find it difficult to describe. Undoubtedly we have made tremendous progress since that time. But, honestly, I think that if you look at the history of the last 60 years you will see that the changes which have taken place have been the result of struggle, political struggle and trade union struggle. Every advance that has been made in the last 60 years has not been made because the rich have co-operated with the poor, or because the Party which represents the Establishment has co-operated with those who have sought better conditions: the change in society over the last 60 years, which I have witnessed and in which I have participated, has been due almost entirely to the fact that those who are poor, those who are in contrast with the very rich, have struggled for their rights and have gained them as the conscience of the community has begun to understand their grievances.
The second point on which I should like to comment in the noble Lord's speech—and it is here that I appreciated tremendously his sincerity and frankness—was his recognition that the Industrial Relations Act had created a psychology which is partly responsible for our present position. It was courageous of him to say that, and one would like to hope—indeed, this debate has shown—that in our present crisis there is a seeking for a truth which is not bound by Party partisan loyalties. I shall have more to say on that subject later, but I cannot begin what I had planned to say without recognising the frankness with which the noble Lord made those statements.
My Lords, it is the tradition and the spirit of this House that when one recognises what is good on the other side of the House one should acknowledge it, and I have tried to do that here on many occasions. Indeed, some of my friends have thought that I have been too kind and courteous to the Government. This applies particularly to the sphere for which the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has been responsible; and he will be concluding our debate to-night. But I have forthrightly to say that I cannot find a glimmer of hope, in either achievement or promises, in the policy of the Government which we are discussing to-night or one
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for which one can utter any word of praise. What is now being done seems to me to be more disastrous than anything that has been done since the Governments which were in office in this country in the early 'thirties.
I am going to moderate what I had intended to say because this evening, for the first time, there is some promise of conciliation. We have had the proposal from the Trades Union Congress giving some assurance that the miners' action would not be repeated by other workers laying claims to what the miners might have gained, and the Prime Minister has agreed this evening to meet representatives of the T.U.C. We have had the statement from Mr. Scanlon—regarded as extreme—the leader of the Engineering Union, that his union will not take advantage of any concessions which are given to the miners. Because there is this slight hope to-night that there may be some solution of this problem I shall speak with a little more moderation than I should otherwise have done.
Nevertheless, I think this ought to be said. The Government are asking for national unity. I would say that at this moment there is more division in our society than I have ever known. During the General Strike of 1926 I was editing the T.U.C. paper in the North of England. In that General Strike there was nothing like the bitterness which there is now among our working class. I think the noble Lord who preceded me put his finger on the spot: that bitterness has arisen from the confrontation which began with the Industrial Relations Act and has followed from that Act. I hope that negotiations tonight may change the situation somewhat, but the organised working class of this country now feel that the Government are pursuing policies which are aimed at repressing the working class in their claim to rights for a better standard of living—and for that Her Majesty's Government must assume great responsibility. It is no good suggesting that the unrest in this country is due to a few Communist leaders. There are 27 members of the Miners' Executive: only 6 are Communists, and even the few who belong to the Labour Left on the Executive bring the number only to 11. If the more militant leaders of the miners' union now have influence, it is because there is that feeling among the

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rank and file of dissatisfaction of conditions in the mining industry.
It is suggested—and it has been suggested also from this side of the House—that the miners and others are now defying Parliament and challenging democracy because they are making demands which go beyond Phase 3. I regret very deeply that I did not hear the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, because I believe he put forward an argument which I am now going to repeat. The miners are acting legally. They are at this moment working five days a week underground. I shall be describing their conditions later, but I shall only say now that anyone who knows those conditions would think that five days a week underground was adequate. The fact that there has been a drop in coal supplies because they are declining to work overtime is an indication of the shortage of the necessary labour in the mining community. Phase 3 is now being treated as though it was another version of the Ten Commandments brought down on a tablet by Moses. Certainly the Code was authorised by the Counter-Inflation Act; but Parliament, which passes legislation, also has the right to amend legislation in differing circumstances. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Alport, argued that we are now facing a situation where Phase 3 should be so amended.
Phase 3 was based on the idea of a great increase of growth in our economy. The Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet, only a few weeks ago, were speaking with optimism of the great opportunities which lay ahead for our economy. Even then there were many who doubted whether that optimism was justified, considering the mounting price of everything and the increase in the deficit on the balance of payments. Following that came the oil crisis, which brought not merely a doubt as to whether there would be sufficient oil but also as to what might still occur—and of course we have to think of the vast increase in the price that will have to be paid for oil in future. At that point, the hope of the Government for the growth of the economy (which was the very basis of Phase 3) disappeared. At that moment, something more was needed if oil supplies were to be restricted, and if we had to pay larger sums for it the coal industry
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became more important than it had ever been before. We depended on it for energy and we faced the fact not only of the reductions which previous Governments had imposed on the number of pits, but the fact that every week miners were leaving the pits because they could obtain more congenial work at a higher rate of pay than they were able to receive in the mines. When that situation arose—and this is a point I want to emphasise—Phase 3 became absolutely irrelevant. At that point the whole thought and energy of the Government should have been directed towards re-establishing the mining industry and the methods of bringing workers into it. Instead, Phase 3 was used as a means of action against the miners, in resisting their claims to higher wages and doing nothing whatsoever to reconstruct the industry.
It is over sixty years ago that as a young journalist I went down a mine. It was a deep mine in Lancashire and one reached the bottom of the shaft and then for endless yards it was a matter of crawling through a narrow passage, not daring to lift one's head unless one jacked it against the coal above; and at the end of that passage there was a little box three or four feet high, and there was water. That was the coal face—a typical situation where, hundreds of feet below the surface, lonely miners worked at wresting the coal from the mine. I have been deluded—I thought that the mechanisation of the mines meant that those conditions no longer existed. They do exist. I wonder how many of your Lordships read the article by Mary Holland in the Observer last Sunday, describing the conditions of miners in South Wales, who have to work at a coal-face which is 2 ft. 9 ins, in depth and where there is up to 12 ins. of water. Then, in The Times this morning there was that marvellous invitation from a miner to Mr. Edward Heath to go with him into the mines and see the conditions in which men are working. Last year, 64 miners were killed while at work; 454 were seriously maimed; 58,000 were injured so that they had to be off work for three days; and 626 had dust diseases.
In another place I was Member for Slough where there were very many Welsh miners in retirement. The cases of pneumoconiosis which I had there, and

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the rigidity of a decision as to whether they should have any compensation at all ! The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark referred to one of my great political heroes, Aneurin Bevan. Nye Bevan worked in the mine from when he was 14 years old until he was 20, when the miners' union gave him a scholarship to a Labour college. During those six years as a boy he began to develop pneumoconiosis and it was with him all his life—not severely, but there. When one knows their conditions, how we in this House can begin to look at the miners as though their claims are unjustified I cannot begin to understand.
My Lords, what have been their wages? The National Coal Board figures published today show these facts: almost 60 per cent. of the mining community have less than £40 a week including overtime; and a third of those who are employed in the mining industry receive less than £35 a week, including overtime. There has been some dispute in the debate today as to exactly what they will receive under the offer which has been made by the Coal Board. I say to this House that I cannot think of a wage or salary which is paid to the miners which would not be justified under the conditions in which they work.
There is the fear that if the demands of the miners were to be met there would be subsequent strikes. We have had the trade union assurance to-day. But in the long run the issue of industrial disputes will depend on something deeper than whether one recognises the claims of the miners to-day. It will depend upon the whole pattern of our society; it will depend upon the sense of social justice.
It has been said in this debate, as it has been said outside, that the Labour Party has no constructive policy to deal with these problems. Sometimes perhaps we fail to get our constructive policy across, but both the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress have declared four policies which would not merely meet the needs of the miners and the workers but would change fundamentally the social pattern of our country, which is the real reason why there are continuing disputes.
First, we would insist upon a redistribution of wealth in this country. I recognise at once that even if the incomes of the
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rich were distributed over the whole community, the increase for the majority would be small. But we must understand the psychology of this matter. Workers on £25 a week or £30 a week hear of others on £25,000 and £30,000 a year. What is the effect upon their psychology? If we are to get a sense of social justice in the community there must be a redistribution of wealth and of these enormous salaries. How dare millionaires in this House condemn the miners doing this necessary work for the community when they receive the kind of incomes they receive!
Secondly, the Labour Party would seek to keep down basic food prices by subsidies. "Subsidies" is often thought of as a dirty word. I regard "subsidies" as a valuable word because it means that the taxation of the wealthy would be used in order to keep down the cost of living of those who are poor. We would stand for no rent increases and no mortgage increases. We would stand for a great housing programme to deal with the homeless, to whom the right reverend Prelate referred. We would deal with a decent security for old age pensioners. We would extend industrial democracy by public ownership and workers' participation. That is the policy for which Labour stands. It is the alternative to the policy of the Government and it is only as one gets down to these differences between the Conservative Party and what our Party would seek to establish that one really will begin to end the unrest, the disputes, the strikes and the disquiet which are now rife in our society.
8.7 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, as always, has made a speech in a style for which I in very many ways envy him. He said at the very outset of his speech that it would not be as forceful as it would otherwise have been had it not been for the fact that there is some attempt at conciliation proceeding at the moment. If I were sitting on the other side, I should hate to meet him in his forceful moods.
I am glad that it does not fall to me to reply to this debate in which there have been so many notable speeches. Like so many other noble Lords, I must congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, on his appointment to this

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great task. Perhaps I ought to congratulate the country on getting him, because I believe that he has attributes which will be of value in this particular field. While paying special attention to the speech to-day of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, as it deserves having regard to the great responsibilities he has undertaken, I was struck, as always, by the brilliance of his exposition and the high standing which his intellect has secured for him in this House, and obviously, too, within the Government. Going on from that, I thought of most of the others who make up the Government of the day, some in this House and others whom I have watched in other days in the other place, and I concluded that the Government are composed mostly of highly intelligent men. They are a Government of all the talents—individually brilliant but collectively lacking in wisdom. I have long since discovered that intelligence, intellectual brilliance and wisdom do not always go hand in hand.
I remember a friend of mine in the last Government who always impressed me by his brilliance; indeed, it seemed to shine from him, and I was merely blinded by it. But when I left him I often wondered, "Was that really wise? Was there wisdom behind that?" That is why I often doubt and rather suspect brilliant intellect. I look rather for wisdom than for that particular quality, though I am bound to admire it. This Government collectively have led this country in three and a half short years to the brink of disaster. At this point in my speech it had been my intention to itemise the consequences which have flown from the actions of the Government; but it was done in such a factual and robust way by my noble friend Lord Leatherland that I will spare them that and turn immediately from that to today's debate. I notice that my noble friend Lord Brockway did not spare them, and I think he was right not to spare them.
Turning to this debate, I believe it is quite impossible to have at this time any idea as to whether the recall of Parliament and the debates in this and the other House will have any effect on the events which are profoundly disturbing us all. I have listened to almost every word spoken in this debate over these two
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days. Every speech has been pervaded, and rightly, with a sense of the seriousness and urgency of the situation. If I do not comment at any length on the ASLEF dispute it is because the cause of the trouble is an inter-union dispute in which my own union, the National Union of Railwaymen, is involved. I deplore the imposition on people of the hardships which inevitably flow from industrial action by people who are employed in providing a service.
What little I would say arises from my own memory of a past dispute. Shortly after World War I, on rejoining the railways I found myself very quickly involved in the preparations for a strike. The N.U.R. were proposing to strike against an ultimatum issued by the then controllers of the railways about the wages of all railwaymen except the drivers. The drivers had been bought off, or so it seemed, by a settlement of their wages far in advance of what was being offered to the other grades—to me, as a signalman, and to my colleagues. The N.U.R. declared a strike and, to the credit of ASLEF, they immediately gave notice of their intention to strike, and did strike, in support of the other railway grades. I mention this because ASLEF at that time recognised that railway employment was indivisible between the grades. I hope they will accept the same now.
My noble friend Lady Burton of Coventry appealed to the Opposition to talk to the unions, to say to ASLEF that they are imposing severe hardship on innocent commuters. She asks us roundly to condemn any industrial action which affects people in any way. The noble Baroness, for whom I have considerable respect, seems to be living in a world that simply does not exist. Does she not realise that preaching publicly at trade unionists and their leaders would have the very opposite effect to that which she would wish to achieve? I have had some little position in the trade unions and can estimate what the result would be.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, may I interrupt? I think that the noble Lord, Lord Champion, must have forgotten what I said. I said it was possible for the Opposition to talk privately to the unions to influence them, and to talk publicly to give hope.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, as I understood the noble Baroness she said it was our function, as the Opposition, to condemn them. I understood that this meant condemn them publicly. The modification she has made, if it is a modification, is a sound one, because a public rebuke would be the very last thing that would have any effect upon the trade unions.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I have not modified it. That is what I said.
LORD CHAMPION: I beg my noble friend's pardon.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I said that I had not modified anything. That is what I said in my speech.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, may I say that the noble Baroness has modified my understanding. I hope she will accept that. I think the noble Baroness was answered, adequately and well, by my noble friend Lord Davies of Leek. I am glad to say I have just heard that ASLEF has made a gesture which may lead to meaningful negotiations. I can only hope that it will have that effect and that we shall soon see an end to this dispute which is causing so much hardship for so many people.
What seems to me to have emerged from the debate is that there are three schools of thought here: first, the hardliners—though their tone was a trifle muted; secondly, those who would stretch the elasticity of Stage 3 up to breaking point, but not beyond; and, thirdly, those who would go beyond that if necessary and settle at almost any price. I would not go so far as settling at any price, but I would certainly go beyond merely stretching Phase 3. In a consideration of all this I must own to a very natural sympathy for the miners, for I am married to the daughter of a miner. During the period between the Autumn and Christmas Recesses I was absent from this House attending the funeral of a brother-in-law whom I had seen coughing up his lungs and whose post-mortem certificate said, "pneumoconiosis". Two next-door neighbours of mine died of "dust", as it is colloquially called. So there is nothing detached or academic about my feelings about mining,
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which is about the most arduous, dirty, unhealthy and dangerous job that men are called upon to do in this country.
I must admit that for years my only feeling when I heard of a pit closure was one of gladness that there was one less of those black holes to swallow up men—a point so well made by my noble friend Lord Taylor of Mansfield in his moving speech yesterday. I felt that, despite the fact that I knew that in the short term usually the whole community which had grown up around that pit was going to suffer all the devastating consequences of unemployment. Why should men work in underground positions when fuel in two forms, oil and gas, would at man's command come gushing up out of the ground? That is what I felt about it. But recent events have clearly demonstrated that we have to visualise and prepare not only for the continuance of the existing pits but also, if we are to maintain a reasonably high standard of living, the opening up of new seams and new pits. There is already (and this has been said before) an estimated shortfall of 56,000 men in the coal industry, and although there is some sign of a stepping up of recruitment in the mining industry, there is still an annual loss at the rate of 15,000 to be added to the shortfall of 56,000.
The country's short-term problem is to create the conditions which will get the miners to abandon their overtime ban and then to go on as an act of conscious planning to create the conditions in the industry to attract enough men to the mines from other occupations and outlets. That was rightly said by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to be part of his duties, and I hope that he will pursue it vigorously. When I came into contact with mining conditions in the pre-1914 era, the miner was the aristocrat of labour, certainly in South Wales, He must become again the aristocrat of labour, for we cannot hope to secure our fuel supplies in an economy in which, as a member of the N.U.M. executive has put it, "A man can get more for wrapping Mars bars than for digging coal under the ground". In the short term it is clearly not enough to say, "We stand firmly on Phase 3 of our Incomes and Price Policy," for clearly a solution of our existing problem cannot be found on those terms. The noble Lord, Lord

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Alport, rightly said that Stage 3 is no longer relevant to the present situation. How right he was.
A right honourable friend of mine in the other place, and my noble friend Lady Wootton, in a letter to The Times on Saturday last, have reminded me of the fact that as long ago as March, 1973, the Pay Board were asked to consider and report on wider pay relativities. Does this not provide an avenue of escape from the present impasse? For no sane group of people—and I would say that the Pay Board are that—even on a cursory examination, could recommend a continuance of conditions in which (and I will not use the example of the man who sweeps the car factory floor) a man on a car assembly line receives earnings so far above those of men engaged in the mining industry.
My Lords, an early report by the Pay Board on relativities, clearly recognising the nature of underground work—as did Wilberforce—would ensure to miners a more substantial pay packet than seems possible under Stage 3. This might provide a face-saver for the Government and a degree of satisfaction for the miners. Who has ever been in negotiations of the character now going on between the Government and the N.U.M. who has not recognised the importance of face-saving, even if it is never explicitly mentioned? It is a factor. How right I think the noble Viscount, Lord Caldecote, was about face-saving. It matters enormously, and this has to be brought into consideration as one of the psychological factors in all negotiations of this sort.
My Lords, I do not believe that this would be grasping at an insubstantial straw, for it might get us out of our immediate difficulty and take us a step towards the solution of the long-term energy problem. That sort of solution might lead to leap frogging, and recent figures might be quoted. But I would remind the House that,
"the percentage increase in weekly earnings for all industries between 1938 and 1948 was 114; but for coal it was 206. From 1947 to 1955 miners increased their average earnings by nearly £6 a week, shipbuilders and dockers by £4 10s., railwaymen by £4, cotton workers by £3 10s. and farmworkers by only £2 10s."
My Lords, that does not look like leapfrogging. It shows that the rest of the unions, other workers, can really understand something of the nature of the work
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of the underground men. Added to those facts—
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: Would the noble Lord be very kind and give way? Is it not true that after Wilberforce other unions took great encouragement from what was granted to the miners, and that wage increases were double in the six months after Wilberforce what they were in the six months before Wilberforce?
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, did I not say that I recognised that some of this might lead to leapfrogging? I was going on to say that the Trades Union Congress assurance of to-day seems to me to hold out some promise of a hope of restraint by all of its members. It certainly holds out a hope, and it ought not to be lightly ignored or rejected. It is a major step in the right direction. I was delighted to learn that the Prime Minister invited the T.U.C. leaders to meet him this evening. I hope that this will not be for a restatement of previously adopted postures, for if that happens attitudes will continue to harden rather than help us to arrive at a solution and an ending to the dispute.
My Lords, I am not going to run away from anything that I said in a recent debate about trade unions using their great power responsibly. I recognise that the tendency to leapfrogging is there, but the T.U.C. statement is certainly a very encouraging one in relation to the miners' dispute. I also know that it would be very difficult for trade union leaders to hold back when conditions are ripe, reverse their traditional function, and risk the loyalty of their members. But, my Lords, if there is not voluntary restraint by the trade unions, somehow they will have to be checked. The overweening power of the capitalists in the 19th century eventually found a check in the growth of trade unions, and in much the same way will any overweening power by the trade unions have to be met by some check, perhaps not yet devised. Perhaps I am not saying a very popular thing at this moment, but nevertheless these are the facts of the exercise of power. It has always happened in this country that overweening power has eventually found its check. The last thing I wish to see is the Government of this country going down to defeat by any section of the community. To be defeated by the electorate is one thing; to be defeated by a

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sectional interest is another and for the sake of our Parliamentary democracy to be avoided at almost any cost. In this I agree absolutely with the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson.
I appeal to the Government to think again about "no surrender" et cetera. I remember a splendid slogan of the miners' strike of 1926, and so does my noble friend Lord Davies of Leek:
"Not a penny off the pay—not a moment off the day".
A marvellous rallying call, my Lords, but the miners were defeated in the long run by the circumstances of the time. That is what beat them, not their courage, not their spirit. If the Government are wise they will recognise that there are times when "no surrender" is the right slogan, and there are also times when such a slogan, and the idea behind it, is simply not capable of realisation. I hope the Government recognise that. In the circumstances, it would be wise for the Government to adopt the idea of conciliation rather than confrontation, as recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Alport, in a speech that I should like to have made. I very much commend it to the Government for their evening reading, and their reading to-morrow.
8.30 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD WINDLESHAM): My Lords, the wording of the Motion standing in my name for the debate we have had yesterday and to-day goes very wide. It refers to the energy situation; it refers to the continuing industrial disputes in the coal industry and on the railways, and to the introduction of the three-day working week in industry. In addition to those three factors, it finally contains a reference to the effect of all three on the national economy. The advantage of an omnibus Motion of this kind is that noble Lords can raise almost any aspect of the situation which is facing this country on which they wish to speak. I must say that noble Lords have taken full advantage of that freedom. The disadvantage is that the debate tends to lack cohesiveness; it tends to lack continuity of the kind we can get when we are debating a narrower issue. Yet, as so often, the recall of Parliament earlier than would normally have been the case has been matched, I believe, by the response of this House.
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Despite the fact that we had a two-day debate, and a very full debate, on the economic and industrial situation only just before the Christmas Recess, on the recall of Parliament more than 40 noble Lords put their names down to speak in this debate and have given us their advice.
We have had a wide variety of speeches, of course: one from the new Secretary of State for Energy himself. I think all of us, irrespective of Party, take pride in his achievements and I should like on his behalf to thank most warmly the noble Lord, Lord Champion, for the tribute he paid at the end of the debate from the Opposition Front Bench, a tribute which was echoed by many others. We have listened to businessmen, the chairmen of great companies, such as the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, and the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft; to former trade union organisers and leaders—the noble Lord, Lord Champion, comes in that category. I was disappointed, however, that some of the very prominent trade union figures on that side of the House (some of them, I notice, were good enough to come to the House and to listen to the debate) were not able to take part, speaking as they would do with the great authority and knowledge they can bring to a debate of this kind. But we had the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Mansfield, speaking last night from his long and immediate experience in the coalfields. We also had the noble Lord, Lord Balogh; and earlier today the former Lord Mayor of London, Lord Mais. We had former Ministers who sit on the Benches opposite; also my noble friend Lord Alport, speaking with such long experience and great frankness of mind which he always brings to these debates, on our side of the House. Without labouring this point, the general debate has shown once again what a very wide range of interests are represented in this House. We may lack a popularly elected mandate but we can claim to represent, and represent directly sometimes, an exceptionally wide range of relevant interests.
The difficulty I find myself in, not for the first time, and one shared by noble Lords on the Front Bench opposite in summing up a debate of this kind, is that it has nothing which could be described as a central theme. A number of detailed questions were asked, and my noble friends and myself will try to

819
ensure that replies are given subsequently, if not in the course of this winding-up. But in the main I have not thought it was an information-seeking debate. It is fair to say that on both sides of the House, although there have been a number of notable exceptions, most speakers have been rehearsing their set positions. We should not be surprised; it is quite natural in a Parliamentary system with two sides of Parliament opposed to each other, although in this House we have the great benefit of the Cross-Benches.
But outside the walls of the Palace of Westminster I am not sure that this is the mood of the country. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, was getting rather closer to the subject in another brave and courageous speech to which we all listened with respect. Very many people are genuinely perplexed, genuinely uncertain—but aware of the gravity of the situation facing the country. They know, and most of us in our hearts know too, that there is no obvious way out of what the noble Lord, Lord Mais, called the impasse in which we find ourselves at present. Temporarily we must all hope. If there had been an obvious way out, of course it would have been taken—it would have been taken weeks ago. There are a whole number of strands in the way in which the public look at this subject, and not all of them are reflected in a Parliamentary system, because we debate it in a situation in which the two sides across the Floor of the House are facing each other. But outside there is an important strand of feeling that the cost of the current industrial disputes, particularly of course the miners' dispute, is likely to be so high that it would be better to make the best deal with their representatives that could be achieved, and to do so as quickly as possible. We need to recognise that that point of view exists, and to understand it. But against that there is a widespread conviction that it is inflation which is the real threat to living standards in this country: it is the threat to the living standards of miners, it is the threat to the living standards of miners' families, as much as it is to everyone else. It is only by means of a code of provisions generally accepted and impartially applied that there is any hope of checking the growth of inflation.
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Of course, it is true that by no means all of the causes of inflation are under our control in this country. The increase in commodity prices across the developed world, so vividly illustrated in a table in the Financial Times on Tuesday, has played a major part. Then there is the truly staggering increase in oil prices—referred to by my noble friend Lord Carrington when he opened to-day-resulting from the Middle East war, and only now and only just beginning to show its effects in the domestic economy. But behind all this, and well understood by the public as a whole, is a realisation that total real incomes cannot rise faster than the rate at which the economy as a whole can expand.
Moreover, there is the uneasiness referred to by my noble friend Lord Watkinson and by other speakers—an uneasiness, an awareness that if industrial power can be used successfully against a policy which has been approved by Parliament in this instance, why cannot it be used again, used by the same group, used by other groups, used for this purpose or used for other purposes? So here is a dilemma, and one clearly evident in public opinion. I do not suppose I am alone in sensing the dichotomy in this debate. What it comes down to in the end is one of the oldest problems, if not the oldest, of politics: how to reconcile the demands of one group whose needs are special—and it is not necessary to argue against the special character and the special quality of the needs in which the miners find themselves—with what are perceived to be the needs of society as a whole. If we are wise, we learn that there is not an answer to that question. It is what politics is all about, and we all have our own answers. But to arrive at a consensus it is necessary to trust each other's motives; and this, if I may say so with all diffidence, I believe to be one of the underlying reasons why the present industrial situation has taken on such an unyielding and, at times, such a distressing complexion.
I suppose that one of the questions that has come up most frequently in the public debate, and in our own debate, is the reason for the introduction of the three-day working week. There has not been a great inclination this afternoon to question the statistics and reasons that

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the Government have given. The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, in opening for the Opposition to-day, said that he had some figures which cast doubt on those of the Government on coal stocks which led him to wonder about this. My Lords, I also have statistics, in the greatest detail. But at this stage in the debate, and in the mood of the House (promoted very much, if I may say so, by the final remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Champion) I propose, unless some noble Lord wants them, to move on to the next point.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I should like just one statistic if he has it, because it has not been declared in the debate—or I may be wrong. What are we losing per week, in terms of tons of coal, as a result of the miners' not working overtime?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords. I hesitate to answer that question off the cuff.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: It is a fundamental fact.
LORD WINDLESHAM: It is indeed a fundamental fact. I have a percentage figure at the back of my mind but I do not want to give a misleading figure. I can tell the noble Lord, because I am closely involved in these matters, that it is a figure which has been given publicly. I will check on it again; I will give it to the noble Lord, and I will see that it is the updated figure.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, we should like to have it officially.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, an official figure has been given of the percentage reduction in coal output since the ban on overtime began. I am sorry that I am not quick enough to pick it out of the papers in front of me.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord. The whole point is this: are the Government now saying that because we are not getting that overtime coal the whole burden of the three-day week is put on the shoulders of the miners?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I can argue exactly that point; the chain of argument is that the three-day working week was necessary to ensure that supplies
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of electricity lasted through the worst of the winter. Why was that judgment made? It was made because coal stocks at the power stations were judged by the National Coal Board, by the Central Electricity Generating Board and by the Government to be inadequate to sustain demand unless the restrictions were introduced. I think that argument is one that noble Lords will accept without having the statistical basis read out to them at this stage in the debate.
The only other statistical point that has been raised on a number of occasions is the impact of the offer made by the National Coal Board to the miners in terms of the earnings of individual miners. As we know, the figure of £44 million represents 13 per cent. of the total wage bill; and to that can be added, in certain circumstances, up to 3½ per cent. on productivity agreements. But what does that mean in terms of gross earnings? I am afraid it is necessary to give them as gross earnings because taxes vary, of course, with the individual. In terms of gross earnings (to pick out two categories), an underground craftsman who in October, 1973, had average weekly earnings of £48, would have under the new offer, if accepted, estimated average earnings increased to £55; and that would be for working the same hours and the same conditions. A surface non-craftsman who in October, 1973, had average weekly earnings of £33 would, under the offer, have estimated average earnings of £39. These are figures produced by the National Coal Board; there are obviously other categories, but I think the figures I have given are interesting in translating these percentages into actual figures.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord for one moment, it is important to know, because there is a variation between the different shifts, whether this is the figure for the night shift or for the morning shift?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, the examples I have given refer to men working five or more shifts on a rotation of days—afternoons and nights—and the comparison, I understand, is a fair one. The October figure is related to the figure under the offer. I am always so grateful to the noble Lord the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, for his help in these matters; his intervention has enabled me

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to find the answer to the question addressed to me by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek. I understand that the result of the ban on overtime is that there has been a reduction in coal output of approximately three-quarters of a million tons of coal per week.
The noble Lord the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party asked me a whole series of questions about the common energy policy of the European Economic Community. He explained to the House and he explained to me before he left that it was necessary for him to go to an important meeting; I hope that the noble Lord sitting on the Liberal Front Bench will tell him that no discourtesy whatever is intended when I say that I have some answers to the questions that he put but I think the House as a whole might prefer it if I sent them direct to the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, rather than giving the benefit of this information to the House at this stage.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I am sure the House will be quite content with that arrangement.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, the Bishops' Bench has been well represented in our debate. I was extremely sorry to have missed the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. I know that my noble friend the Secretary of State for Energy was able to hear at any rate part of the speech. I understand that it was a most powerful speech, and I can assure him that I shall study it in Hansard.
The most topical development in the current situation is the proposal put forward at the National Economic Development Council meeting yesterday by the T.U.C. representatives, and the Government's response to it. The proposal put forward was in the following terms:
"The General Council accept that there is a distinctive and exceptional situation in the mining industry. If the Government are prepared to give an assurance that they will make possible a settlement between the miners and the National Coal Board other unions will not use that as an argument in negotiations for their own settlements."
I have read out the actual words—it is a short statement—because it is important to be clear about just what it was that Mr. Murray was saying. He was not saying that all settlements would be within Stage
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3—perhaps he would feel that it was outside his power to say anything of that sort—but that the settlement would not be used as an argument. So when the noble Lord, Lord Champion, speaks, as I think he did, of an assurance of restraint, we need to be clear about the limitations which are contained within that statement.
The next step was that the General Secretary of the T.U.C. wrote to the Prime Minister this morning to confirm the text of the statement which I have just read out to your Lordships. The General Secretary had asked that the T.U.C.'s proposals should be given the most careful consideration and he hoped that the Government would make a positive response. Those were the words he used. As your Lordships have heard, the Prime Minister did indeed give a positive response—in fact, he gave more than that: he gave an immediate response, and I am pleased that it was taken up immediately by representatives of the T.U.C., although I believe that Mr. Murray was not able to accompany them. However, certain representatives of the General Council were able to go to No. 10 Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Employment this evening. The meeting started at 6 o'clock and I understand that it went en for some two and a quarter hours; it finished at 8.20 approximately and I have not yet heard the outcome.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords. I hope they had some sandwiches and beer.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I should like to end this debate by referring again—because I believe it is absolutely essential—to what I said earlier about trusting each other's intentions. This is crucial to the British political system, because without it it is quite impossible for any sort of consensus to emerge. People have not been asked to give up their opinions. I have seldom agreed on most things with the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, but I do respect his motives when he speaks, whether on this issue today or on foreign affairs, immigration matters and all the other subjects on which he speaks with such passion. This is what the Prime Minister said on behalf of the Government last night in the House of Commons. Referring to the invitation to the union leaders he

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said that he had made it—and I quote his words:
"not in a spirit of confrontation and suspicion, but in a spirit of constructiveness, of moderation and of reason. It is not too late for reason to prevail. It is not too late to discuss and settle all these matters within the framework which Parliament has approved. It is not too late to look to the future and to plot our course together. Indeed, it is in the interests of the whole nation that we should do so, and do so as rapidly as possible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons; 9/1/74, col. 24.]
My Lords, those are the sentiments publicly put on Record by the Government within the last 24 hours, and I cannot believe that they will not command the support of your Lordships' House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EMERGENCY POWERS ACT 1920
8.50 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I beg to move the first of the two Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper relating to the Emergency Powers Act.
Moved, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, thanking Her for Her Most Gracious Message communicating to this House Her Declaration that a State of Emergency exists.—(Lord Windlesham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

EMERGENCY POWERS ACT 1920
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, I beg to move the last Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Emergency Regulations 1974 made by Her Majesty in Council on January 9, 1974, under the Emergency Powers Act 1920 shall continue in force after the expiration of the period mentioned in Section 2(2) of the said Act, subject to the provisions of section 2(4) thereof.—(Lord Windlesham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at eight minutes before nine o'clock.