§ Mr. Heddleasked the Secretary of State for Employment (1) if he is satisfied that parties, including local authorities, will follow the code of practice on the closed shop and union-labour-only clauses, once Parliament has approved it; and if he will set out the evidence for his assessment;
(2) whether he has received any evidence that some local authorities, nationalised industries and companies write clauses into their contracts which require contractors to employ only trade union labour on work undertaken for them;
(3) whether he will consult employers' organisations and trade unions to see whether further action might be possible to ensure that the spirit of the code of practice is followed, particularly by local authorities which intend checking whether a contractor has a closed shop before placing his name on their list of approved tenderers;
(4) if he will list in the Official Report all public bodies and nationalised industries known to him which issue clauses similar to that of British Airways, August 1979, requiring that the contractor and subcontractors shall employ only trade union labour under the contract, and clauses in contracts similar to that issued by British Leyland in September 1979 that all labour employed by the contractor on site had to belong to an appropriate trade union and a similar condition would be imposed on all nominated or domestic subcontractors.
§ Mr. WaddingtonThe Government are not in a position to list the details of the contracting policies of the various public bodies and nationalised industries, many of which are not subject to ministerial control. However, the Secretary of State for Industry wrote to the chairmen of nationalised industries last year to make clear Government policy on the question of union labour only clauses, and other sponsoring Departments have taken similar action. The Government's code of practice on closed shop agreements and arrangements, which was approved by Parliament last year on 13 November, came into effect on 17 December. The CBI has urged all its members, both in112W the public and private sectors, to resist pressure to impose or accept contractual terms requiring union membership and has advised them of the code's statement on this point. The Government expect public as well as private bodies to observe the guidance in the code of practice. The Green Paper on trade union immunities, Cmnd. 8128, discusses this problem and possible measures to deal with it. The responses to the Green Paper will give a better basis for assessing the extent of the practice by local authorities and others of including union labour-only requirements in contracts and will enable the Government to determine whether there is a need for further measures.