§ Mr. Walter Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give an estimate of the cost of holding the ballot on railwaymen's pay, including Press advertisements.
§ Mr. Chichester-ClarkI have nothing to add to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Ted Fletcher) on 25th May.—[Vol. 837. c. 458.]
§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will give the category and grades of the 16 officers of his Department who volunteered to assist the Commission on Industrial Relations with the count of the railway workers ballot when their staff went on strike; what in actual cash terms was paid to each of these 16 officers for the stated number of hours worked; and how this compared with the rate paid to the normal staff employed for this purpose.
§ Mr. Chichester-ClarkThe volunteers were executive grade officers. I understand that the CIR did not regard its staff as being on strike.
As regards the second part of the Question I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given him on 6th June. It is not the practice to state the sums of money paid to individual officers.—[Vol. 838, c. 51–2.]
Mr. Arthur Lawisasked the Secretary of State for Employment why he did not refer to the National Industrial 275W Relations Court the dispute affecting the members of the Commission of Industrial Relations staff who refused to work over the week-end to sort and count the railway workers' ballot papers, because of the dissatisfaction with their conditions of payment and time off in lieu.
§ Mr. Chichester-ClarkBecause there were no grounds for doing so.