§ Mr. Rookerasked the Secretary of State for Industry if, pursuant to his replies on 10th July, he will publish in the Official Report the letter sent by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr to Ministers in his Department regarding Lucas Aerospace, dated 23rd May 1977, and to reply sent by the Minister of State, dated June 1977.
§ Mr. KaufmanFollowing are the letters
From Jeff Rooker, M.P.Gerald Kaufman M.P.Minister of StateDepartment of IndustryVictoria StreetLondon SW123rd May 1977Dear Gerald,Lucas Aerospace
In recent months you have been contacted by representatives of the Lucas Aerospace Combine Shop Steward Committee concerning their Corporate Plan. You will know that the basis of the Corporate Plan is to provide a positive alternative to recession and redundancies.I do not intend to repeat what you have already been told but I only write to inform you, so that it is on the record for the future, that the Company has refused continually to discuss the Corporate Plan with the authors.At a meeting on 1st March when 70 representatives of Lucas Aerospace from factories in Birmingham, Blackburn and Liverpool came to the House they made it abundantly clear that if redundancies take place later in 1977, 92W and they have had no opportunity to put forward their positive alternative proposals, then there will be industrial action throughout the whole of Lucas Aerospace. It was because of this statement that I and my colleagues sought a meeting with the top directors.On 17th March I arranged a meeting at the House of Commons when three senior directors from the Company attended. The Company representatives were: Mr. J. Wrighton, Deputy Chairman of Joseph Lucas Ltd; Mr. G. A. Webb, a senior director of Lucas Aerospace, and Mr. R. E. March, Group Director of Personnel. It is within the knowledge of the eleven M.P.s who attended the meeting that the Company representatives made it abundantly clear that they were not discussing the Corporate Plan with the authors of the Plan even at plant level.From the copies of correspondence I have seen, it is quite clear that Ministers at the Department of Industry, (and for that matter, leaders of the T.U.C.) who have been approached give the impression in their replies that they do not wish to touch this issue with a barge pole. I may be wrong, but I am certainly not the only Labour M.P. to get that impression. It is clearly implied by Members representing other parts of the country, who have not been at any of the meetings organised in recent months, but have only been in receipt of Ministerial replies.Yours,Jeff.Department of Industry1 Victoria Street London SW1H OETFrom the Minister of StateMr. KaufmanJeffrey Rooker Esq., M.P.House of Commons,London SW1A OAA.Dear Jeff,Thank you for your letter of 23rd May about Lucas Aerospace. I note that you wrote similar letters to Eric Varley, Les Huckfield and Bob Cryer, and I am replying on their behalf also.This Government is, of course, fully committed to encouraging the growth of industrial democracy at all levels in British industry, and in this context, the preparation by a group of workers of a report taking a wide-ranging long-term look at the future of their own company is a most welcome initiative.When I met the Combine in December 1975, I advised them that the Plan ought to be discussed with management in the first instance. I considered then, and still do that the employees and management are in a better position than anyone outside to decide what is best for their mutual prosperity.I understand that a meeting with the Combine to consider the management's response to the plan failed to take place because of a last-minute procedural problem. I am informed that more recently, however, there has been an increased awareness on the part of management of the need to use the proper channels for discussion of this kind.93WSimilarly Ministers, while consistently saying that the Shop Stewards' Corporate Plan is a document which—on the basis of the relatively short summary that we have seen—appears to merit discussion between the management and workforce, have naturally and rightly been aware of the need not to bypass Trade Union machinery.The issues raised by the Plan must in the end be resolved by the company and the Trade Union representatives of the workforce, As you know, we are frequently reminded that when issues arise in the engineering industry which involve the interests of more than one Trade Union, the proper channel for discussion is through the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering workers. In the last few weeks, therefore, Ministers have been advising that the Combine should pursue their case through the CSEU, and the CSEU has itself been informed of this.It would certainly be very valuable if you and the other Members of Parliament who met the Lucas Shop Stewards in March could add your influence to persuade Mr. Scarbrow and his Committee to use the CSEU machinery.Yours,GeraldGerald Kaufman
§ Mr. Rookerasked the Secretary of State for Industry if he will list the details of letters to newspapers written by the hon. Member for Birmingham Perry Barr to which he referred in his answer—Official Report, 10th July, column 1016.
§ Mr. KaufmanI am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing my attention to an error on my part during my answer on 10th July—Official Report, column 1016. I should, of course, have referred not to letters to the press but to interviews given to the press, particularly the interview reported in The Birmingham Post of 26th June.