UKPOL.CO.UK

Blog

  • William Price – 1978 Speech on MP Salaries

    Below is the text of the speech made by William Price, the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office, in the House of Commons on 28 July 1978.

    The purpose of these motions is to give effect to the appropriate increases in parliamentary pay, Members’ secretarial allowance and the salaries of Ministers and office holders in accordance with current stage 3 pay guidelines. Under the guidelines, Members are eligible for an increase of 10 per cent. in their parliamentary pay. The first motion therefore increases the figure from £6,270 to £6,897, with effect from 13th June. Corresponding increases are given in the abated parliamentary salaries payable to Ministers and office holders.

    No doubt some of hon. Members will say that 10 per cent. is not the right figure, although I hope that many will argue that it is too high. Some may want an increase based on a figure more appropriately reflecting the salary that a Member should be receiving, and the last Top Salaries Review Body report may be called in evidence.

    We have carefully considered that argument, as well as all the others put to us. Although we fully appreciate the strong feelings held in many parts of the House, we are convinced that the proposals on the Order Paper represent the only defensible course in terms of pay policy. Certainly it is not part of my case that the present situation is anything like satisfactory and I should like to say something about future prospects a little later. However, I hope that it will be accepted that Members of Parliament should be seen to accept no more than their constituents in the current pay round.

    It will be argued—I have a good deal of sympathy for the point of view—that it will never be the right time to correct the serious defects of the past. We recognise that argument, but we say that we could not pick a more difficult time. I do not need the House to remind me that I have been standing here each year since 1975 saying almost exactly the same thing. That is true, and I may as well admit it.

    Some hon. Members are concerned about the disclaimers of the stage 1 increase of £6 which many signed. They believe that the time has now come to withdraw that. That, of course, is a matter for the individuals concerned, but no other TSRB group has received that £6 and for Members to do so now would, I believe, be seen as a conflict with pay policy.
    Although Members will have reservations about the proposals on salary scales, I hope that there will be general approval of the Government’s recommendations on pensionable pay. Last year’s £208 pay increase was added to the £8,000 pensionable rate. The stage 1 £312 increase remained unincorporated, and in last year’s debate the Government recognised the force of the argument that it should be included but could not at that stage support the proposal. My right hon. Friend has re-examined the issue in the light of current circumstances and we are therefore proposing that it should now be done.

    The figure of £9,372 given in paragraph (2) of the first motion thus comprises £8,208 plus £312 plus 10 per cent. The table in paragraph (3) prescribes the supplements payable to cover the 5 per cent. pension contribution on the difference between actual and pensionable pay for the various new rates of parliamentary salary. The rate of contribution to the scheme will increase to 6 per cent. with the passage of the Parliamentary Pensions Bill and the rates shown in the third column of the table are in anticipation of that increase.

    The second motion increases the reimbursement limit for secretarial allowance from £3,687 to £4,200. That will not only allow Members to increase their secretaries’ pay by the amount under the guidelines; it will allow the increased costs of employers’ national insurance contribution to be met, and that is a move which I know many hon. Members welcome.

    To some extent, the increases in national insurance costs were anticipated in the Review Body’s 1975 recommendation on the secretarial allowance. However, I am proposing an additional element of almost £150 within the proposed new limit to cover increases which have arisen since then.

    The third and final motion seeks approval of a draft Order in Council to implement a salary increase of 10 per cent. for all Ministers and office holders. The maximum salaries for these appointments are laid down in the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975, and the rates may be amended by order in council, subject to a draft being approved by resolution in each House.

    There is one point that I should make in connection with the order. Throughout, the order quotes maximum salaries which are not necessarily the actual salaries being paid. Appointments held by Ministers in another place attract higher rates of pay than the corresponding appointments in the House of Commons because of the addition of the rounds 1 and 2 increases which were available to Commons Ministers through their parliamentary pay. Since the 1975 Act gives no power to differentiate the rate laid down if an appointment is held by a member of one House rather than another, the higher rate has necessarily been given, but the Act permits a lesser amount to be paid than that authorised for any post.

    Now I come to the question in the future, which is a matter of considerable interest to Members and one which inevitably will lead to some controversy. It is not an easy matter but it is not, in our view, one that we can ignore. During the past 12 months, Members have put to my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council by means of letters, Questions and through deputations, a multiplicity of views concerning the course that we should adopt for the future, and we of course are aware both of the amendments that were tabled to these motions and of Early-Day Motion No. 502.

    I want at this stage to record on behalf of my right hon. Friend the value that he places on the constructive and helpful discussions that he has had with ​ a group of Members led by the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. Hughes). We have said many times that we accept the argument that here are real problems of Members’ pay, but there is no magic formula available to us which will suddenly put right the injustices of the past, particularly at a time of continuing pay restraint for the rest of the country. We can see little benefit in breaking away from the procedures already established for determining Members’ pay, and my right hon. Friend, with the approval of the House, therefore intends to recommend to the Prime Minister that the TSRB should be asked to undertake a further review of parliamentary pay and certain related issues.

    So long as we can keep the scope of the reference fairly limited, there is every reason to expect a quick report, and one issue in particular that we should like it to look at again is the question of a salary link—an attractive proposition to many Members.

    Obviously, we shall be asked whether we can give an assurance that the Government will fully implement the resulting recommendations. My right hon. Friend has some sympathy for that view and has seriously considered whether a forward commitment would be appropriate. The Government believe, however, that there are grave difficulties in giving a blind commitment to accept immediately whatever the Review Body recommends.

    Nevertheless, I assure the House that the Government recognise that they have a strong obligation to Members on the matter of their pay, and I remind the House that they have said that there would have to be clear and compelling reasons for the TSRB recommendations not to be accepted.

    I believe that a further powerful argument in this respect is a move towards a bipartisan approach on pay, led by the right hon. Members for Taunton and Anglesey. This development has meant that for some time there has been a substantial common approach between the parties on the problem of how Members’ pay should be tackled, and we are hopeful that there will also be a common approach to the acceptability of the report.

    This is a matter on which the time will never be right; neither will the amounts recommended meet with universal approval. There are very powerful views on this matter in all parts of the House, and they are by no means unanimous. What I do say is that the proposals before the House today are the most—and, in my view the least, as well—done in the circumstances. I hope that they will meet with general approval.

  • Michael Meacher – 1978 Speech on Tourism

    Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Meacher, the then Under-Secretary of State for Trade, in the House of Commons on 26 July 1978.

    My right hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) has made a speech which befits his position as chairman of the all-party committee on tourism and which I think was witty, detailed and very well informed, as one would expect, and closely argued. He raised a large number of points, and I shall try to deal briefly with each of them.

    My right hon Friend’s theme was that of spreading the blessings of tourism not only seasonally but also geographically. He will know that the Government’s policy on this matter has been quite clear since 1974, in particular in the guidelines on the application of section 4 expenditures to the development areas and special development areas, where we emphasised the need to make fuller use of the scenic and other touristic assets in those parts of the country which would benefit from the development of tourism.

    We asked the tourist boards to emphasise this in the course of their work. The aim, as my right hon. Friend knows, was not to divert existing trade from established resorts to new areas but to tap the growth in visitors, including overseas visitors in particular, but not only them, and to encourage them to leave the beaten track and to try new areas in Britain.

    For British people, the emphasis has been more on extending the season and on exploring the less familiar parts of Britain instead of taking a package tour abroad. I think it is fair to say that the tourist boards’ response to this initiative has been excellent. The attractions of the rest of Britain besides London and the traditional resorts, which my right hon. Friend praised so highly and so rightly, are now featured prominently in their literature. New heritage routes and trails have been developed to encourage people to visit particular localities. Joint marketing ventures have contributed to the retention and growth of Continental traffic through northern and western ports. Off-season and weekend promotions have brought valuable extra business to hostels in all parts of the country at their less busy times, and plans are afoot to encourage the increasing numbers of overseas motorists to undertake more adventurous and wide-ranging itineraries.

    My right hon. Friend asked for the Government’s view of Amsterdam referring to itself as London’s third airport. I think it is not for me to comment on the way in which a foreign airport chooses to market its services, but I will say that Schiphol is not one of the options which the Government will consider for handling the longer-term demand for air transport in the London area.

    My right hon. Friend made reference to the London visitor survey. He quoted the statistics about the 10 per cent. of complaints. The response to questions about the problems encountered by visitors to London certainly varies from year to year. Last year fewer visitors found overcrowding a problem. The strengthening of the pound inevitably made prices less attractive, in terms of foreign currency, in comparison with the previous year. I should also add that a broader survey of all overseas visitors indicated that last year over 50 per cent. found ​ prices less expensive than in their own countries. That, after all, is a very relevant comparison.

    Mention was also made of bureaux de change charges. As a result of complaints, the Bank of England recently carried out a survey of one-third of the bureaux operating in the London area. In the Bank’s view, the charges displayed were not unreasonable. The higher commission rates may, of course, reflect the cost of providing a service outside normal banking hours and at the weekend. One would expect there to be a certain higher charge for that service. But, if my right hon. Friend has evidence of unreasonable rates of commission being charged, certainly we can ask the Price Commission to investigate.

    My right hon. Friend also asked about what was happening in the tourism growth areas such as the North Pennines, Scarborough and Devon and Cornwall. After a lot of hard work by all concerned in the region, I approved the first of these schemes in outline a few weeks ago. I am pleased to have this opportunity to pay tribute to the local authorities, the Government agencies and other interests, including those from the private sector, in getting together to stimulate tourism in a wide area of the North Pennines while at the same time—this is very important, because it is an issue which has arisen in some of these areas—doing everything possible to safeguard the essential environmental character of the area.

    My right hon. Friend also inquired specifically about progress at Scarborough. I am afraid that I cannot give him any special news about the Manor of Northstead or about the gardens of Scarborough, but I can tell him that I am still awaiting substantive proposals from the working party concerned. I know that the Scarborough scheme was delayed because the initial proposals for the alterations to the Spa Hall failed to secure listed building consent after a public inquiry. I understand, however, that revised proposals, taking account of the inspector’s report, are being energetically pursued, and I hope to receive a submission soon.

    I was then asked whether we were doing enough in respect of the catering ​ industry. My right hon. Friend mentioned a number of mouth-watering English foods. I hope that that message is conveyed in the right quarters. The problems of the catering industry are being studied by the hotel and catering economic development council and is sub-groups. In particular, I should mention the now completed work of the catering industry study group, which produced “Trends in Catering”, a booklet incorporating a large amount of data on the catering industry which had previously not been made available. This was intended as a benchmark to assist the industry in its future development and in its investment decisions. On the recommendations of the EDC, the catering supplies steering group is at present investigating the feasibility of establishing a body to represent the interests of the catering industry as a whole. As my right hon. Friend will know, the industry is at present represented by numerous trade associations.

    In the same context, my right hon. Friend asked about standards and whether they were being maintained by British waiters and cooks in the light of the drastic reduction in foreign staff in hotels over the last three years. With regard to foreign workers, although the annual quotas for work permits for the industry have been reduced drastically, a significant number of those issued with permits since January 1973 have remained here, as, indeed, one would have expected, with the approval of the Home Office. Many have remained in hotel and catering work. There is no reason to believe that the reduction in the annual quotas has affected standards generally.

    It must be remembered also that training for the industry with the training opportunities scheme continues to expand throughout the country, and last year the number of people successfully completing courses was no less than 50 per cent. up on the previous year.

    On the question of overseas conferences—my right hon. Friend mentioned one in particular which chose July-August, with all the inconvenience and congestion that that causes—the Government have very little control over the timing of such conferences. Very few take place in the main holiday season. In fixing the dates, ​ organisers have to take account of the programme of the international organisation involved or of the wishes of the delegate countries.

    However, if my right hon. Friend is referring to Government hospitality which is provided in conferences not organised by the Government, that hospitality is in fact confined to a single evening reception whenever the conference is held. There is really no scope for variation in that.

    My right hon. Friend mentioned complacency in terms of what he described as the decline in the number of visitors in the first quarter of this year. He said that this had been a jolt for the industry and he suggested that this might have been an antidote for the complacency which he previously feared.

    On numbers, I think that my right hon. Friend may perhaps be going a little too far. What we have experienced is a slowing down in the rate of increase rather than an absolute decline. In fact, the BTA is now forecasting about 4 per cent. growth in overseas visitors this year. I hope and believe that my right hon. Friend is right about a lessened risk of complacency. There could be nothing more destructive of standards, above all in a service industry, than the belief—which is inevitably wrong in the long term—that the customers will keep on coming anyway.

    I am grateful for what my right hon. Friend said about the BTA and the Government in their role towards the tourist industry. I agree also that the BTA has done a very good job. It would not be right to forget the ETB and the other national tourist boards, and the non-statutory regional boards, all of whom contribute to the success of the industry and the extension of its benefits throughout the country.

    Let me conclude by briefly summing up the Government’s main strategy for the tourism industry. First, there are the newly-announced initial allowances for hotel construction. I am grateful for the reference by the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) to the point about the Budget. I do not know whether it was the first time this had ever been mentioned in a Budget, but these allowances demonstrate convincingly the importance that the Government attach to tourism, which is now our second largest earner of foreign currency—a remarkable achievement.

    This is a most convincing demonstration of the importance which the Government attach to tourism. The allowances will stimulate new investment through the country, at an estimated cost in a full year of £15 million. This is additional to the value of the existing allowances for plant and machinery.

    Secondly, I have already mentioned the selective financial help available to stimulate tourism investment in many of the more beautiful and remote parts of Britain, including most of Wales and almost the whole of Scotland. Thirdly, the industry benefits from the grants-in-aid given to the statutory tourist boards, currently almost £19 million a year, most of which is used to promote visits to and within Britain and to spread the benefits of tourism more evenly throughout the country. We take my right hon. Friend’s message to heart tonight. No doubt this could be done more thoroughly and more fully.

    The industry has served Britain well in the last few years. With these incentives and help, I have every confidence that it will go on doing so in the future.

  • Geoffrey de Freitas – 1978 Speech on Tourism

    Below is the text of the speech made by Geoffrey de Freitas, the then Labour MP for Kettering, in the House of Commons on 26 July 1978.

    I hardly need remind the House that tourism is a very big business and that a lot of the credit for the size of it must go to the 1969 Act and to the British Tourist Authority. That does not mean that I am forgetting the industry.

    The 12 million visitors we shall have this year will spend about £3,000 million in Britain and in fares to British air and sea carriers. That means that every day of the calendar year they will spend on average £9 million. That represents 6 per cent. of our total exports, invisible and visible. This is more than the exports of aircraft, ships, cars and beverages combined.

    Those of us who meet in the all-party parliamentary tourism committee know of the BTA’s great success, but we also know something of the problems. One of the greatest of them, for Londoners anyway, is the attraction of London. It is not only a problem. It is an opportunity. That we must recognise, since, if the tourists are concentrated in London, that gives the BTA and the regional and national organisations the opportunity to persuade them to go out into the country.

    The load must be spread. In spite of all that has been done, even more must be done to ensure that foreign tourists spend more time outside London. I want them to spend it in this country. I was alarmed to read that Amsterdam was saying that its airport is now the third London airport. I should be interested in the Minister’s comment on that.

    I do not suggest that fewer people should come to London, but I do not want more to come. The tourist organisations have been successful in that 60 per cent. of the overseas tourists currently in this country will not be sleeping in London tonight. But we must spread this load further to places which are not traditional tourist areas. I think particularly of the north-east and the area around by constituency in Northamptonshire, which is the heart of the Midlands and is true English countryside.

    It has fine churches. At least two of them—Lincoln Cathedral and Brixworth Church—are paid-up commercial members of the East Midlands Tourist Board. Everyone knows about Lincoln Cathedral, but Brixworth Church is less well known. It is Saxon and is probably the oldest church north of the Alps to have been in continuous use for Christian worship. In 1980 I shall no longer be able to say that it is on the edge of my constituency, but I shall be able to take part in its thirteen hundredth anniversary celebrations.

    I ask my hon. Friend the Minister whether we have anything to learn from other countries in spreading the load from the capital. I read of the BTA’s director-general attending a European travel commission seminar in Zurich. Was this problem discussed? Have the Council of Europe and the European Parliament taken an interest in this problem?

    There is something totally different that concerns me. The BTA’s annual London visitors survey last year showed that 90 per cent. of the people who came to London had no complaints about the hotels or restaurants. That is fine. But, if one reads it the other way round, it means that 10 per cent. of the visitors did have a complaint. That is not good enough, especially as the complaints were twice as many last year as the year before. These are real complaints, not imagined complaints.

    A month or two ago there was correspondence in the Financial Times about the bureaux de change charging excessive percentages for changing foreign money into sterling. I was able to write to the Financial Times and point out that I had asked a Question in the House and had found that the Department had never had any complaint at all about this. But we shall have to watch the matter very carefully.

    A charge of 1 per cent. must be the standard rate. Thomas Cook has used that rate for 100 years. But, of course, one ‘has to charge more if a bureau is open all night, or late at night or over the weekend. We accept that. But any increased rate must be justified.

    Last July my hon. Friend referred to Government financial help being channelled in the future to selective assistance projects in development areas—the Pennines, North Cornwall and Scarborough. What has happened about this? I am particularly interested in Scarborough because for a short time in 1961—I am the only Member of the House who can say so—when I was on my way to serve in Africa, I held the office of Steward of Her Majesty’s Manor of Northstead, which, I was informed at the time, included the public gardens of Scarborough. How far has this development scheme gone? How far has it been a success? Are we to do more about it? Will it be expanded?

    I think that we have got over the stage when we think at all of people coming to this country because of our weather. No one comes here to bask on our beaches, or to listen to the rustle of grass skirts or the tinkle of ice cubes in a long glass. They come for the other things. What have we got? We have plenty.

    Sometimes we forget that we have got food, which is sometimes unusual but very good. We have cock-a-leekie, kedgeree, haggis, and devilled kidneys. I shall not refer to mustard, because I remember one of the Marx brothers saying that he liked mustard but he prefer red to have a little bit of beef to go with it. We have summer pudding, a characteristic English dish. On a summer’s day, to warm people up, we could have a little plum pudding.

    Catering and serving, like cooking, must be regarded as a craft and treated as such in apprenticeships and in technical colleges. What inducements, financial and otherwise, are the Government giving to developing such training? I know that in the last three years the number of foreigners working in our hotels has declined from 9,000 to 1,500. But has the standard been maintained by trained British workers?

    I refer to the other attractions that there are to coming to this country. Our language and history, of course, are important. Our theatre in London is as good as any in the world, and it is kept alive by tourists. In this way everyone benefits—tourists, Londoners and people in Britain generally. The next big stage must be to promote better theatre in the provinces.

    I have referred to a sense of history and, indeed, of obligation because of our history. For example, the United States ​ has inherited from us our English common law. What could be more appropriate than that every few years the American Bar Association comes here and meets in Westminster Hall, where our courts sat for many hundreds of years? It is part of their history just as it is of ours.

    But the American Bar Association comes in July, when London is overcrowded. I am told that the last time it came there were over 10,000 people including wives, secretaries and so on. I think that the Government should use their powers of hospitality to discourage such large organisations from coming in July and August and encourage them to come, as far as they can, later in the year—for example, October, which is more appropriate because that is when our courts happen to be sitting and when Parliament is seldom in session, at least at the beginning of the month, so that there would be much less overcrowding.

    Apart from the United States, there are Australia, Canada and New Zealand which have close connections with this country in history and language, while India alone of the Asian countries has preserved the rule of law and parliamentary democracy. There is no season in Britain for observing our democratic and legal institutions, and people can come at any time of the year. There is no need to crowd into the summer.

    Last year, I was worried about complacency creeping into the British tourist industry. Today, after a year in which I have met many of those concerned with the large-scale organisation and operation of tourism, I can report that there is no sign of complacency. The fact that there was a 3 per cent. decline in the number of people coming to this country in the first quarter of the year has been a big enough jolt to the industry.

    All those in the industry recognise that there is a challenge to be faced, and with the encouragement and help of the Government—and they have been of help which I acknowledge, in schemes like the industrial building allowances—they are confident that they can maintain tourism as one of our leading industries.

    I summarise. Spreading the load is important, and it must be spread not only around the country but around the months ​ of the year. The visitors survey shows that complaints in London were twice as high last year as the year before. There have as yet been no complaints about the money-changing, but we must watch that position very carefully. What has happened about north Cornwall, the Pennines, and Scarborough? What has happened about British catering and food? What about the standard of our training of people who have taken the place of the foreigners who served us so well in the hotels?

    I can no longer say that there is any danger of complacency. We are generally agreed that there is not. I am grateful for what the Government have done. Our history—and we must remember that our weather is not what attracts people—can help us to sell ourselves because we can be ourselves; we are a former imperial Power; we are accustomed to look out on the world and to meeting foreigners; we are accustomed to dealing with foreigners.

    We have the unusual advantage of having four different peoples—English, Scots, Welsh and Irish—living in our comparatively small country. Our experience and our history of tolerance, with its spirit of live and let live, make Britain a very pleasant place to visit.

  • Jim Prior – 1978 Speech on the Dock Labour Scheme

    Below is the text of the speech made by Jim Prior, the then Conservative MP for Lowestoft, in the House of Commons on 24 July 1978.

    It is a cause for some regret that the Secretary of State ended his speech as he did. I am delighted that he quoted what I said, because it has been the wish of every Opposition Member and, I suspect, of every Government supporter that a new dock labour scheme should be drawn up which could meet with the unanimous approval of all sections of the industry.

    But I must tell the right hon. Gentleman, if he did not know it already, that this scheme does no such thing. He is quite wrong and quite misplaced in saying that this scheme has the backing of ​ the employers, because patently it does not have the backing of the employers, and that must be made clear from the start. It is a matter of regret not only that the right hon. Gentleman ended his speech in such a way but that the House cannot give approval to a scheme that has taken a long while to present to the House.

    It must be said that since the original draft was prepared there has been little change. It would have been more appropriate if the Government had listened rather more carefully to those who have to deal with these matters prior to putting forward a scheme before the House. It is strange that we are now told that it is vital that the scheme should come forward while in the 9 o’clock news there was some question whether the Government were even to lay the scheme before the House tonight. It seems extraordinary that what at 9 o’clock was doubtful is now vital. I do not know where the story came from, but it must have come from someone now sitting on the Government Front Bench.

    The draft scheme follows the Act as laid down by section 4. It is the trigger point for a number and series of matters. It brings in ports that are not already included. It also brings in parts of some industries that are not already included. It brings in nothing like as much as the Government wished for until amendments were forced through with the help of two Government Members. However, some extra warehousing and cold storage is brought in while the position remains the same for small ports.

    We bitterly opposed the Act. We thought that it would affect confidence. We thought that were there was no agreement among the many interested parties. Let us face it: there was a clash between not only employers, or management, and the unions; there was considerable differences of view expressed by unions such as USDAW and the General and Municipal Workers’ Union. Even within the Transport and General Workers’ Union very mixed views were expressed.

    Mr. Eddie Loyden (Liverpool, Garston)

    Influenced by your distortion.

    Mr. Prior

    If the hon. Gentleman thinks that I have the power to stir up parts of the Transport and General Workers’ Union against other parts, I am ​ delighted that he should so credit me. The fact is that the Act and the scheme have always seemed to us to be taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

    The classification may not have been ideal, but nor is the classification within the measure before us. We have spent all day debating unemployment and we have seen the lack of confidence to invest in dockland that the scheme has resulted in over the past three years. That being so, it is not hard to understand why the Government are in such a muddle on unemployment.

    The Government have never listened to the views put forward by unions, employers and the Opposition as well as quite a few Labour Members. We are dealing with a situation that has changed dramatically since the introduction of the old scheme about 10 years ago. Decasualisation has gone and there has been a substantial reduction in the number of employers. At some ports the port authority is the only employer. There have been the consequences of Devlin stage 2, whereby each registered dockworker is allocated to a named employer. All that has changed since the introduction of the original scheme.

    We judge the draft scheme against the criteria of the changes that have come about in the past 10 years. Does the new scheme strengthen the dock labour scheme? The answer is that it does not. Does it lead to more efficient and effective management? Again, the answer must be “No”.

    Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North)

    Justify those statements.

    Mr. Prior

    I shall do so. The changes in dockland over the past 10 years are combined with the changed nature of the cargo, containers and roll-on roll-off that has taken the place of mixed cargo.

    Mr. Loyden

    That is irrelevant.

    Mr. Prior

    On the contrary, it is extremely relevant. There has been a shift in trade from the west coast to the east coast, and there has been a reduction in manpower.

    The Opposition recognise that this has been a considerable and painful period of adjustment, particularly in London, where the pain is not yet over. I believe that we should concentrate far more on the ​ need for retraining and for new industries in the port of London area rather than on trying to take into the scheme warehouses, cold stores and other establishments that have nothing to do with the dock industry.

    The picture is not entirely gloomy. I should tell the hon. Members for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) that in the past few years, despite all the difficulties, Merseyside has improved enormously in its industrial relations. It is important to get a better relationship between employer and dock worker. I do not believe that the dock labour scheme in its present form will do that, first, because of the disciplinary procedures.

    The new scheme seriously weakens the disciplinary procedures. It will place the dock workers’ representatives on the local boards in a invidious position. Trade unionists will find themselves having to consider disciplinary action against their own members when that is not the union’s job. They will have to do that under the new scheme, whereas they did not do so under the old scheme. That is one reason why we dislike the new scheme and do not think that the House should approve it tonight.

    Our second objection is the removal of the power of the National Dock Labour Board to employ registered dock workers. It is vital for the National Dock Labour Board to be able to employ registered dock workers in any transitional period. We understand the feeling about the temporary unattached register. But, in fairness, the temporary unattached register has not been used in recent years until the last few weeks. It has had to be used in the last few weeks because, when Wallis went broke, there was no way in which the additional workers could be put out to other employers.

    Therefore, for a time, at any rate, the dockers had to come back on to an unattached register.

    Mr. Booth

    Under the existing scheme.

    Mr. Prior

    Yes, under the existing scheme. The new scheme is doing away with that. It is doing away with something without putting anything in its place. There will have to be some form of transitional period, some form of register, to enable workers who are thrown out of a job, as happened with Wallis—

    Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    Mr. Prior

    When I have finished this point. There will have to be some form of register—we can call it something different if we like—to take the place of the temporary unattached register.

    Mr. Spearing

    Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Wallis situation occurred when T. Wallis (Royal Docks) went into liquidation overnight and 300 men turned up on a Thursday morning to find that they had no work? Is he advocating that that kind of situation should continue? Does he envisage collapses of that kind? If so, does it not reflect on his view about dock work in general?

    Mr. Prior

    I am saying that in cases of that nature there has to be a transitional register whilst arrangements are being made to place those dockers with other employers. There is no getting away from that. They cannot turn up for work the next morning and be placed with other employers who have no need for them. Therefore, there will have to be some transitional arrangement, and I should think that a transitional register or something of that nature would be more satisfactory. That is another objection to the scheme.

    A third objection concerns the use of supplementary workers. The port employers are worried by the narrow definition of “supplementary workers”. They believe that an amendment is required to clear matters up.

    Some dock workers do other work at times when dock work is not available. They do other jobs around the docks to be kept fully employed. These issues should have been cleared up. I believe that they could have been cleared up. With pressure from the Government on both sides, those matters could have been dealt with. Then the scheme could have gone through. It is true that we have never liked the Act and that we have no particular brief for the scheme.

    I turn to the question of membership of the local boards. There is disagreement among the employers on this issue. Some employers, such as the coal storage companies, wish to have independent membership of the local boards. The National Association of Port Employers and the ​ unions believe that independent membership is unnecessary. There is real disagreement. But the matter should have been thrashed out before the scheme was put to the House. It would have been possible to have independent chairmen for the local boards.

    Mr. Robert Hughes

    What type of person would be regarded as independent?

    Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

    Lord Aldington.

    Mr. Prior

    It is not for me to define such a person. But there are a number of people who are independent and who could become chairmen of dock labour boards at local and national level. I see no difficulty in finding independent chairmen.

    For a number of reasons the Act is bad and the scheme is bad. It is a pity, for future peace in dockland, that a scheme has not been introduced which we could agree upon tonight. I have been in the House long enough to recognise nervous laughter. I know how nervous the Government supporters are because the scheme is likely to be defeated.
    I say to the industry that I believe that there is a basis for an agreed scheme. Certainly, a Conservative Government would seek once more to obtain an agreed scheme. The present Government have not made the necessary effort and do not carry the necessary majority to carry it through.

  • Albert Booth – 1978 Statement on the Dock Labour Scheme

    Below is the text of the statement made by Albert Booth, the then Secretary of State for Employment, in the House of Commons on 24 July 1978.

    I beg to move,

    That the draft Dock Labour Scheme 1978, which was laid before this House on 28th June, be approved.

    A new dock labour scheme is clearly needed in order that the National Dock Labour Board can carry out the duties and the functions which the House decided were appropriate for such a board when it carried the Dock Work Regulation Act in November 1976. The scheme which I have laid before the House embodies some of the broad principles contained in the 1967 scheme, but the changes—the aspects which I take it will interest the House and which it will want to debate tonight—reflect both the experience that we have gained in the operation of the 1967 scheme and the judgment about how far that scheme should be altered in order to take into account the changes in cargo-handling methods brought about in the docks since that time and the changing pattern of trade in many of our docks.

    One of the changes is the abolition of the temporary unattached register. This will bring to an end the process of decasualisation in the industry which was initiated by the Devlin report in 1965. The scheme also contains detailed changes in relation to the powers of the National Dock Labour Board, including its powers to deal with disciplinary matters in the courts.

    I believe that the new scheme makes a provision for safeguarding those employees whose work is classified as dock-work. Such a safeguard has been long needed, and it is certainly not provided by the existing scheme. Therefore, one of the reasons why I believe it highly desirable that the House should pass this scheme is that it will ensure that at any time in the future anyone working in a job which becomes classified as dock-work has the essential protections of his job in his representation by his union on the local dock labour board, protections which are necessary in order to have a secure and stable labour force in an industry which, by its very nature, is dynamic and one in which the pattern of work will inevitably change.

    There is a provision in the new scheme for independent chairmen of local appeal tribunals. There is a requirement upon the National Dock Labour Board to appoint the chairman of these tribunals in every case. When the draft order was laid originally, one of the suggestions was that I should embody provision for independent members to be appointed to local dock labour boards. I have rejected this suggestion, not because I dispute that there are many groups, including warehouse owners, cold storage employers, shippers and road haulage firms, which clearly have an interest in the way in which the scheme is administered, but because I believe that it is a very different matter to say that such an interest should entitle someone with no direct experience of the industry, with no financial stake in it, to have an individual say in the running of the local management of labour within a port.

    That is a very different function indeed from that of the docks consultative committees, and certainly very different from that carried out by the port authorities themselves, with their specific responsibility for the main corporate proposals as to how the docks should be run. The local boards are purely concerned with dock labour matters, and therefore I believe it necessary that that narrow and specific function should be subject to the direction of the National Dock Labour Board.

    The National Dock Labour Board has been reconstituted by decision of this House to bring in a third element of decision as to national policy and to give directions to local boards. It is a body which contains not only representatives of port employers and the unions but of people appointed to help employers and workers on a much wider basis.

    Mr. Giles Shaw (Pudsey)

    Inasmuch as the new scheme—and, indeed, the operation of the Act—is to extend what has been traditional dock work into new fields, how can the Secretary of State say that the operation of the local dock labour board is concerned purely with port or dock matters? Surely it requires representation from outside, independent interests in order to make is effective?

    Mr. Booth

    I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman, who usually studies these matters more carefully, should imagine ​ that the local dock labour board has any ultimate responsibility for the extension of the scheme. If he examines the Act, he will be perfectly well aware that, although proposals may be made by local dock boards, it is only the National Dock Labour Board in the first instance and the National Dock Labour Board in the last instance which can make representations to the Secretary of State for any extension of the scheme.

    I believe that it is essential to an understanding of both the scheme and the Act that it should be seen that anyone who is affected by a proposal for an extension of the scheme should have a right to make representations as to his interests, and that any representations he makes to a local board must be notified by the board to the National Dock Labour Board. Only the National Dock Labour Board, which has the three clear elements within its membership, should be able to put to the Secretary of State a proposal which can subsequently be put before this House.

    That is a clear line of responsibility for any extension of the scheme, and I suggest that anyone who is thinking tonight of rejecting this scheme—which means, by definition, that he is requiring us to retain the existing scheme—should look very carefully at the existing scheme to see just how far he is rejecting the proposition that there should be that clear line of control and accountability for any extensions of the scheme and any further classification of work.

    There is no question whatsoever but that under the Act coupled with this scheme outside interests are guaranteed a hearing on any matters affecting them and relating to the operation of the scheme. Those employers whose activities can be brought within the scheme will have an equal right of representation on the local boards as existing port employers. Before the work can be classified for the purposes of the new scheme, the National Dock Labour Board is required to carry out extensive consultations with everyone concerned, but the decisions about classification are to be made by the Secretary of State and are subject to parliamentary endorsement. In view of all the sensitivity which exists in dock work areas and all the concern expressed in this House about the proposal to bring ​ in the scheme, I believe that it is right that that line of accountability should exist.

    The kind of work which can be classified as dock work under the scheme is now clearly defined within the Act. I believe that if the scheme is passed it will rid us of the very serious difficulty which exists in operating the present scheme, which arises from the doubt whether work can be classified. Work done in some ports is classified. The same work done in other ports is not classified. It is possible, under the existing scheme, for the challenge to take place whether work should be made dock work. While we were debating the Bill in Committee, such a challenge took place in Merseyside and was examined at great length by the Committee, but no one suggested then that the existing procedure for classification of dock work was ideal.

    Broadly, the work concerned in this scheme must be cargo handling and where the work is mainly concerned with an owner’s own goods, even his cargo handling, it cannot be classified. It must be regarded as “own account” work. The handling of any goods not at any stage loaded as cargo in a ship cannot be brought within the scheme, either. Manufacturing work is outside its scope. But the main point, which I think will be appreciated by the House, is that in this scheme, coupled with this Act, the definition of what can be classified and what must not be classified is quite clearly laid down in schedule 4 of the Act.

    This is a very short debate. However, before sitting down I should like to remind the House of what the right hon Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) said in this House after the Government accepted the Lords amendment which restricted the area to which the scheme applied. He said:

    “We hope that the Act, as it will become, will result in a period of peace and stability in dockland and that the dockers and other unions and workers involved will settle down so that we can achieve what we need to achieve in dockland…. The fact that the cargo-handling zone and the five-mile corridor have been removed from the Bill will enable confidence to return to the area so that warehouses may be built and the industry can settle down.”—[Official Report, 18th November 1976; Vol. 919, c. 1597–98.]

    It is hard to imagine that anyone who took that view of a decision on a Lords amendment would ever suggest that the ​ scheme and the Act which resulted from those remarks should be rejected. But I understand that such is to be the position tonight.

    This scheme not only has the backing of the employers and the unions in the industry; it has the backing of people who have knowledge and experience of operating a dock work labour scheme. It has their backing, and it accords fully with the spirit and intention of the Act.

    I believe that our dock workers will be understandably bitter if, more than 18 months after the Act was passed, when the scheme has been examined carefully in draft, it is put before the House and rejected. They will rightly have to call upon us to operate an existing scheme—it is their statutory right to do so—a scheme which is outdated, a scheme which carries with it great difficulties and threats for those whose work is classified under the scheme anew.

    Therefore, I believe that the House should give approval to the scheme. If we fail to do so, we cannot put it right by bringing back a revised scheme at short notice—that must be made clear. The whole of the statutory consultation procedure will have to be gone through again, and therefore a very substantial delay will be inevitable.

    I believe that the scheme is a very substantial improvement on the existing one. It is an improvement for those whose interests may be affected. It is an improvement for workers whose jobs may be classified. It is an improvement for a House which wishes to take a responsibility in the area of determining the allocation of dock work. As such, I commend it to the House.

  • Bob Cryer – 1978 Speech on the Sheffield Cutlery Industry

    Below is the text of the speech made by Bob Cryer, the then Under-Secretary of State for Industry, in the House of Commons on 24 July 1978.

    May I first say how pleased I am that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) has drawn attention to the difficulties facing the cutlery industry at present? I very much appreciate the way he dealt with the subject. May I also point out that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), whose constituency is very much concerned with this industry, and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Miss Maynard) have displayed their interest, without participating in the debate and repeating the very clear statements made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough, by being here throughout the debate tonight. There has been a drop of 9 per cent. in employment in Sheffield alone in the three years from 1973 to 1976, and this is a matter of serious concern to us all.

    Before embarking on my reply, perhaps I should briefly say that the term “cutlery” which we are using refers to implements such as knives, forks and spoons and the like, known in the trade as “flatware”. This is the section which we are now discussing. We are not at present concerned with razors and razor blades or with knives for machines.

    Although they are regarded for some purposes as cutlery, they are entirely separate sectors and are not beset by the problems which my hon. Friend has described.

    My hon. Friend has been assiduous in drawing attention to the difficulties of the industry, and the industry itself has made representations to successive Governments on a number of occasions about the adverse effects of increasing competition from imports. Together with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade, the Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Meacher), I met a deputation from ​ Sheffield on 9th January this year to discuss the matters which have been raised tonight. In addition to my hon. Friends the Members for Hillsborough and Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley), and our much lamented late hon. Friend as Member for Penistone, Mr. Mendelson, the deputation included representatives of the cutlery manufacturers, the trade unions, Sheffield city council and South Yorkshire county council.

    We are to meet them again next Thursday, and this is an indication of the great willingness on the Government’s part to discuss this serious matter. I think it important that the Government should keep in touch with the important areas which are expressing concern, and this is why we are happy to see a deputation so soon after the first one in January this year.

    Our meeting with the Sheffield delegation earlier this year not only underlined the concern but left us in no doubt as to its members’ views on the need for early action. The industry agreed in 1976 to undertake a study in depth of its problems to see what answers could be found, including the possibility of import restrictions. I shall deal with this study more fully later.

    As a consequence of the discussions in January of this year to which I have referred, and because of the continuing pressure of imports, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade arranged for the possibility of temporary import restrictions to be discussed with officials of the EEC Commission. The Commission indicated that it was not prepared to support at that stage an application for the imposition of import controls by the United Kingdom. Among its reasons for that were the fact that a number of British cutlery manufacturers were themselves significant importers. It cannot, surely, strengthen the case for import controls if the very people who are complaining are themselves the main culprits.

    Second, the Commission said that because imports of stainless steel table cutlery had become so high, it seemed unlikely that home producers could provide fully for the cheap end of the market. My hon. Friend has made suggestions to cope with that, and those suggestions will be taken into account.

    However, the Commission did agree to the introduction of surveillance licensing for all imports of cutlery into the United Kingdom from outside the Community. This came into effect on 10th April, but at present it is too soon to draw any positive conclusions from the information so far collected. But we hope that it will be of value in further consideration of the industry’s problems. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that it is too soon to draw any substantial conclusions, but certainly the information gathered so far indicates that the surveillance is of very great importance.

    I must emphasise, as my hon. Friend did, that we are now members of the EEC and it would be very difficult to act unilaterally. There has been a shift of emphasis, of course, and the Government must take this into account. The Commission is involved. I well recall that my hon. Friend and I warned of the consequences of this position before the 1975 referendum. However, the fact is that the referendum decided in favour of our continued membership of the Common Market. The modification of the Government’s position regarding unilateral action, because of membership of the EEC, is today a reality that we must face.

    In this context, it is important not to overlook the steps which the industry itself has taken to secure a limitation of imports from two of the three principal sources. I understand the point that my hon. Friend has made about the limitations of voluntary agreements, but it is important to point out that voluntary restraints have been exercised by Japan for many years, and that restraints have recently been volunteered by Korean manufacturers following talks with their British counterparts. Voluntary restraint arrangements impose much less pressure on the international trading system than do formal import controls, as is recognised in other sectors.

    Therefore, it is important to urge the industry to seize whatever opportunities it can to extend these voluntary arrangements. I know that there are criticisms —my hon. Friend has mentioned them—such as that full reliance cannot be placed upon them, but I certainly believe that every possibility needs to be exploited, and the industry should certainly explore that sort of possibility.

    ​I now turn to the study of the industry that is going ahead. First, I must emphasise that the study is being done primarily by the industry itself, by staff from its research association. The suggestion that the industry should look for a solution to its problems other than by import controls is not a new one. Positive proposals for a study were put by my Department to the industry as long ago as 1974. In 1974, these proposals included the proposed terms of reference and an offer of a contribution to the cost of the study. We do not have and nor does the trade association, frankly, have sufficient information on past or future investment capacity, profitability and other factors on the industry to enable us to make informed judgments about the whole position.

    The study which the industry has now agreed to undertake has the following terms of reference, but I would point out that we have lost those two years due to the inability, at the time, of the industry to make a decision about embarking upon this important study. The terms of reference are:

    “To consider the major factors affecting the efficiency and competitiveness of the UK cutlery and flatware industry in both home and overseas markets; and in what ways its performance might be improved, including whether temporary restrictions on imports might help to achieve this.”

    Therefore, restrictions on imports are included in the terms of reference, and they are being studied.

    My Department has agreed to pay half the cost of the study, and to make an economist available to help with the commercial and economic aspects. After a slow start, because of delay in obtaining a sufficient response to the questionnaire sent to firms, I am glad to say that the study is progressing satisfactorily. The information contained in the study will enable us to present a complete case to the Commission. It is certainly our view that simply a decrease in the amount of employment in the industry would not of itself convince the Commission that import controls should be imposed.

    It is necessary, therefore, to explore, every avenue, and that involves presenting the strongest possible case that the Department can do to the Commission when the study has been completed.

    Mr. John H. Osborn (Sheffield, Hallam)

    I probed Commissioner Davignon on this matter only two weeks ago, and he indicated that no positive approach had been made to him and that he was waiting for that approach from the industry and the British Government. After these remarks, will the Minister clarify the matter?

    Mr. Cryer

    Certainly. I am not responsible for Commissioner Davignon. It sometimes happens that what a Commissioner says is not entirely in accord with what has transpired. But I can assure the hon. Gentleman that an approach has been made to the Commission about import controls, and that as I said earlier —I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was present at the time—the Commission was approached about import surveillance and has agreed to it. There is no question but that representations have been made to the Commission.

    It was our understanding from the Commission that, for the reasons I outlined, import controls could not at that stage be applied. A full and proper case must be presented to the Commission. We have been urging the industry for some time to compile a study in order to ensure that we have the fullest information so that any questions that arise can be satisfactorily resolved.

    The industry hopes that a report on the fact-finding phase of the study will be available by the end of August. The intention is that the report will then be considered by a working group consisting of representatives of both sides of the industry and of my Department to consider and recommend appropriate courses of action to achieve the objectives of the study. No doubt that will involve a consideration of import controls as a way of improving the position.

    I cannot forecast what recommendations will be made, but the industry and my Department have a target completion date for the work, the end of 1978. I can only say that we shall give all the help we can towards a successful conclusion. I know that the Sheffield city council and the South Yorkshire county council are also anxious to help in any way they can.

    The study is not the only way in which my Department is helping the industry. Officials have had discussions with some companies about financial assistance under ​ the Industry Act, and I am glad to say that interest is being shown. We help the industry to benefit from collective research and development carried out by the Cutlery and Allied Trades Research Association in two ways. First, the Department undertakes the collection of a statutory research levy from manufacturers of stainless steel cutlery and flatware. Secondly, it contributes towards individual research and development projects on a significant scale.

    I believe that in the face of the massive competition from imports it is of vital importance that British cutlery manufacturers should exploit every opportunity offered by advances in technology. Apart from the contribution which my Department makes to collective research and development, it is always ready to consider applications by individual manufacturers for assistance under the product and process development scheme.

    The pressure of imports for some types of cutlery, serious though it is, can, if we are not careful, give a somewhat distorted view of the achievements of the industry. The traffic is not all one way by any means. The British cutlery industry—as I defined it at the beginning of my speech —exports successfully to many parts of the world, mainly in the better quality and more expensive sectors of the market. In fact, in 1977 our exports of cutlery were greater in value than our imports, and the figures to date point to our again enjoying a favourable balance of trade in 1978. This represents a gradual improvement on earlier years, and it not, therefore, a flash in the pan.

    However, we should be wary about assuming that because we are exporting well in the expensive end of the market this is the end of the matter. We have always bobbing over our shoulders the example of the British motor cycle industry, which opted out of the cheaper end of the market and gradually the expensive end was taken over as well. But the industry should be congratulated on its export achievements. Certainly it is a hopeful sign for the future.

    My hon. Friend raised an important question about marking, which included the question of imported blanks, which are silver plated in this country and then sold with a description which suggests. ​ or might be taken by some to mean, that they are of British origin. Whether this is a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act depends on whether the silver plating constitutes a substantial change in the product. This is solely for the courts to decide, and I cannot express an opinion. If anyone feels that an offence has been committed he should draw the matter to the attention of the appropriate local authority consumer protection department, which has responsibility for enforcing the Acts. That is the legal position, and I must make that quite clear. But I would add that practices of the kind described would be regarded as not in the best long-term interests of the British cutlery industry.

    I would strongly urge anybody who feels that there is a case to make the appropriate report so that action can be taken and a legal decision arrived at. That might be of enormous benefit and importance to the industry. I shall bring this debate to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, so that he is kept fully abreast of the representations and feelings on the matter.

    There is no general requirement for origin marking of goods in this country. Moreover, the use of the order-making powers under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 to impose such a requirement can be used only when origin marking is in the interest of the consumer. The cutlery industry has not so far convinced my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection that there is a good case for a marking order on consumer protection grounds. The legislation does not allow for origin marking for the purpose of protecting trade.

    But my hon. Friend is bringing a delegation on Thursday and I can assure him that there will be a representative from the Department of Prices and Consumer Protection so that this matter can be gone into in some detail, because it is an important matter which is of concern not only on cutlery but on many other items of manufacture.

    My hon. Friend pointed out the disparity in working conditions. There was a recent film on television about working conditions in Korea which clearly showed that Korean employees have not got trade ​ union rights, they have no health and safety at work legislation, and no employment protection Act, so if any factory inspectors were called in they could be sacked at a moment’s notice. It is hardly fair competition for British workers, who have had this element of protection introduced by the Labour Government, when people in such countries as Korea and Hong Kong are grossly exploited, although that would not be true. for example, of Japan.

    But it may be necessary, in considering any import restrictions or quotas, during the negotiations for, for example, a social clause to he considered, which may well be of assistance to the working class of Korea in improving their working conditions, so as to end the long hours and extreme tiredness demonstrated in the film by the girls falling asleep during their ​ luncheon break, when a photographer crept inside, apparently against the wishes, which is hardly surprising, of the factory owners and took pictures of them asleep.

    This must be a matter for any future negotiations. But if we are to have international competition it must be fair, without the sort of massive exploitation I have described. I look forward to meeting my hon. Friend and the delegation on Thursday, when we can go into these matters in detail. I thank him for his expression of concern tonight. I hope that I have answered some of his questions and assured him that this is a continual process of investigation.

  • Martin Flannery – 1978 Speech on the Sheffield Cutlery Industry

    Below is the text of the speech made by Martin Flannery, the then Labour MP for Sheffield Hillsborough, in the House of Commons on 24 July 1978.

    I wish to speak about the Sheffield cutlery industry, an ancient industry which for many reasons finds itself in grave difficulty.

    Some time ago I saw a television programme that dealt with the American textile industry. The plight of that industry embodies to some extent the dilemma of the cutlery industry in Sheffield. We in Sheffield love the cutlery industry. Some of my people, including my mother, worked in it. One part of the television programme showed a huge ​ textile factory standing idle. It had been built to make shirts, but it was closed because Japan flooded the market with shirts which had one button and one button hole missing. The American workers had only to put on the button and the button hole in order to stitch on a label which said “Made in USA”. That sort of thing is happening all over the world, and certainly in Sheffield in the cutlery industry.

    An excellent article in The Guardian today about Sheffield cutlery says:

    “In the beginning, there were knives, forks and spoons. The world looked at them, saw the mark ‘Made in Sheffield’ and pronounced them good. Then came knives, forks and spoons from Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. The world looked at them and said they were not so good but were cheap. Some of the world continued to demand the quality indicated by Made in Sheffield’.”

    A long time ago, London was the beginning of cutlery, in the same way as it was the beginning of most things. There was a 200-year struggle with Sheffield in the Middle Ages from which Sheffield emerged triumphant, tiny place though it was. Chaucer, for instance, in “The Reeve’s Tale”, mentioned that the miller carried a Sheffield knife:

    “A Sheffield thwytel bare he in his hose.”

    That trade in the sixteenth century gradually developed trade marks. In 1624, the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire was formed by an Act of Parliament. Hallam-shire is the ancient name for the Sheffield area. There was a steady growth in prosperity because of the water and the water wheels in the area. There was little real competition.

    Then we make a real jump to the last war. I remember being in India for a long time during the war. When I was in Calcutta at one stage, I idly did what every Sheffielder does—I picked up the cutlery and examined it. It was a link with home: it was all “Made in Sheffield”. Tonight, in the Dining Room, I examined the cutlery of the House of Commons. In contrast with some of the crockery recently, the cutlery is still “Made in Sheffield”.

    But can anyone be sure that “Made in Sheffield” still means what it says? In many cases it does not. How has this happened, As The Guardian said, after the war, Japan entered the market, in the late 1950s Taiwan and Hong Kong, and now South Korea undercuts them all; 94 per cent. of the industry has gone, due to unfair competition.

    There are about 25,000 cutlery workers in South Korea making stainless steel table cutlery. Their production is the equivalent of that of 60,000 British workers—and not because the British workers dodge but because the South Korean workers work 56 hours a week, six days a week, with very few holidays. Their young labour force works at a relentless and rapid rate. Many of them are juveniles. There are no trade unions. There is no organised labour. There are no guards on the machines. This enables a far faster work rate.

    Factory conditions are primitive. There is poor ventilation and inadequate dust extraction. Little attention is paid to effluent disposal and the departments are cramped and crowded. Hygiene, welfare and safety are casualties of the system. Raw materials are cheap. At $950 a tonne stainless steel is about half European prices. Some low-cost finished Korean cutlery actually lands in our country at the same price as European stainless steel sheet.

    The industry has no development costs. Initially the State finances the plant and equipment for foreign exchange purposes. Importers, sadly, including those in our own country, originate products or get successful products copied. So product development costs do not arise in South Korea. Low prices ensure that the overseas customer goes to them because they have virtually no home market.

    The services are supplied by cheap labour. The average male wage is about £70 a month, the female wage is about £60, and the reductions for juveniles are drastic.

    I turn now to the question of trade marks and the Trade Descriptions Act. Most people do not know that cutlery, as with other items, can enter this country without the country of origin being marked on it if it is unbranded—that is, if it has no trade mark. When it is sold ​ anonymously, the consumer will never know where it comes from and whether it is oriental in origin. If it is branded with a name or trade mark, the country of origin must be shown on the products and packaging.

    There is a loophole. If a manufacturing process occurs on imported products, resulting in what is called a substantial or material change, the product may he stamped as “British” or “Sheffield”, and that is quite lawful. But what is a material or substantial change? It needs a court case to determine that. I hope that there will be one to define the phrase, because it is not clearly defined at present.

    There is a disturbing and growing tendency for some manufacturers to take advantage of this loophole. They bring in stainless steel knives, forks and spoons without identification on them. They then stamp with their name and the words “silver plated Sheffield”. It should be “in Sheffield” but they omit the word “in” sometimes. Instead of saying “in Sheffield”, they say merely “Sheffield” and convey the impression that the article was made there. That is a product passing for British.

    There is a severe split in the cutlery trade in Sheffield. I confess that I am very surprised that the unions did not go into this matter on a considerable scale a long time ago. The split has arisen between the importers of cheap, almost finished goods and those who are resisting this trend. The importers want a quick profit and, whether they like it or not, are selling tomorrow for today. It is, one would think, a short-sighted, myopic policy. They are cutting the industry’s jugular vein, and they must know it, and the industry is bleeding to death. Some factories in Sheffield are becoming mere warehouses for cheap, shoddy products from sweat shops in South Korea which convey the impression that they were made in this country and in our city.

    One of the Sheffield newspapers which telephoned me yesterday told me that since 1971 5,000 jobs have gone. One recent visitor to South Korea has told us that special steels, which are now the lifeblood of Sheffield and the one really profitable side of the BSC, are in grave danger because of the machinery now in South Korea which is building up a special steels industry. However, that will be ​ taken up in another debate. Since the late 1950s, about 10,000 jobs have gone. Only about 4,000 now remain, and 400 of those work people are out of work.

    We are asked to accept voluntary agreements. They mean that countries rely on one another—as they do in the motor trade, for instance, where vast numbers of Japanese cars come into this country but we sell hardly any to Japan. As a result of a deputation that we had some time ago to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, there is now to be surveillance of cutlery.

    The Common Market forbids import controls. France and Italy have thriving cutlery industries because they operated import controls before the Treaty of Rome was signed, and therefore they are not affected in the same way as we are. I wonder how many of the employers in the cutlery industry who are now squealing asked for us to stay in the Common Market and wanted us to join the Common Market. By that they struck a blow at their own industry from which it is reeling to its knees, and even further. The so-called voluntary agreements are difficult to police, are seldom honoured and are totally inadequate.

    What, then, can we do? The Government must intervene on imports. Whatever laws they violate in so doing, let them remember that it is our industry, not the Common Market’s industry. It is an old and honourable craft. We do not want it killed because of our adherence to EEC quotas. Quotas must be introduced on cheap table cutlery—for example, the £5 per dozen pieces which are coming into this country and under-cutting the workers in our city. The quotas must be on all table cutlery made from all metals. They should be introduced progressively so that the industry is not suddenly faced with an increased demand which it will be unable to meet.

    Therefore, these controls would need to be introduced progressively. This would steadily reduce the rate of imports from Far Eastern countries and produce expansion in the trade, which we calculate would be from 5,000 to 8,000 jobs in a few years, depending on, say, 25 per cent. at the beginning. The rate of expansion will depend on that, but it is my duty to warn all concerned that there will be ​ resistance from within the trade from those whose quick profits now depend on cheap imports.

    It is possible still to save the Sheffield cutlery industry if we act now and act quickly. This is a proud industry with a proud history, and it must not be allowed to die. We can and we must take the necessary steps to save it.

  • Denis Healey – 1978 Statement on Inflation

    Below is the text of the speech made by Denis Healey, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the House of Commons on 21 July 1978.

    With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement on the Government’s policy for winning the battle against inflation.

    The policy I announced on 15th July last year comes to an end in 10 days’ ​ time. It has been an impressive success. Inflation has been reduced to 7·4 per cent, well under half the rate a year ago, the lowest inflation rate for six years and far lower than that which the present Government inherited in March 1974. In fact, Britain’s inflation rate is now about the average for industrial countries—about the same as that of the United States, lower than that of France and Canada, although still higher than that of Germany and Japan.

    The standard of living has not simply been maintained, as I then promised. It has risen by some 5 per cent. for most men and women in Britain during the current pay round, partly as a result of the tax cuts and improvements in social benefits which the falling rate of inflation has enabled the Government to make. Some of these tax cuts and increases in benefit have still to take effect. In particular, retirement pensions will be worth £31·20 for a married couple in November—an increase of almost 20 per cent. in real terms compared with the level we inherited four and a half years ago, and the child benefit will amount to £4 a week for every child when the increase next April is added to that in November. As a result of all the fiscal changes since last October and taking account of child benefit changes, a family on £75 a week with two children, will have an increase in net income of some 12 per cent. by next April—equivalent to a wage increase of about 15·5 per cent.

    The fall in our inflation rate has also made possible a substantial increase in national growth. Industrial output was rising at an annual rate of well over 4 per cent. in the last three months. Unemployment has been on a falling trend since September last year.

    The nation owes a debt to trade unionists and employers alike for the common sense they have shown in observing the Government’s guidelines in the last 12 months.

    Inflation will remain around 8 per cent. for the rest of this year at least. We must now ensure that it does not rise into double figures again next year. This means that earnings must increase substantially less in the coming pay round than in the current round.

    Our aim should be to keep the increase next year to half what it has been this ​ year. The climate for pay negotiation is now very much more favourable to moderate settlements than it was a year ago. Nevertheless, the Government cannot rely on this alone. They must give a clear lead: they must accept the responsibility for fixing guidelines which will enable us to keep inflation in single figures. The White Paper to be published today therefore sets a guideline for pay settlements for the coming round at 5 per cent.—half the level of the guideline in the current round.

    The White Paper sets out some limited exceptions to this guideline. The form of the guideline offers negotiators the same flexibility as they have had in the current round to structure their settlements in the way best suited to their particular circumstances. I hope employers and unions will use this flexibility according to their needs—in particular, to restore differentials where appropriate.

    In a small number of cases in the public sector the Government have already recognised that some exceptional increase is required. The increase in national earnings resulting from these exceptions is expected to be only about 0·15 per cent. in each of the next two years. There may be a small number of other groups for whom similar treatment might be appropriate when they reach their settlement date. But it would be self-defeating if more than a few groups were accorded such treatment and the Government will therefore carefully examine any proposals put forward in this area to see how far the same considerations apply.

    To help those on the lowest incomes, the Government would be ready to see higher percentage increases where the resulting earnings were no more than £44·50 for a normal full-time week, which is the present-day equivalent of the minimum pay target set by the TUC four years ago plus the 5 per cent. The Government expect those on higher earnings in the same or other industries to accept the relative improvement in the position of the lowest paid which follows.

    The Government will expect negotiators, as in the current year, to respect their existing annual settlement date. In the very exceptional case which may arise where a highly fragmented bargaining situation needs to be rationalised, the Government will be prepared to consider synchronising settlement dates providing ​ that the overall level of the settlement takes account of any costs involved.

    Self-financing productivity deals will be permitted on the same conditions as in the current round.

    Much attention has been focused on the possibility of reducing working hours and the contribution this might make to increasing job opportunities. We welcome the recent TUC initiative on the reduction of overtime working. However, if a reduction in hours led to an increase in labour costs the result could only be to reduce employment. In general, therefore, the Government could accept a reduction in hours as part of a pay settlement only on condition that the settlement as a whole does not lead to any increase in unit costs above what would have resulted from a straight guideline settlement on pay.

    As in the current round, the Government will do everything possible to ensure that the guidance set out in the White Paper is observed throughout the public sector. In the private sector the Government rely on employers and unions to act with responsibility and moderation as the CBI and TUC have assured us they will. However, the Government will, if necessary, take account of any failure to observe the guidelines in exercising their discretion in the fields of statutory assistance and other appropriate discretionary powers. The pay clauses in existing Government contracts will remain in force and will continue to be included in new contracts. The Government will, of course, as promised in March, be ready to hold discussions with the CBI about the operation of these arrangements for the future.

    The Government regard continuing price control as an important part of the battle against inflation. Over the coming months the Price Commission will maintain an active programme of investigations into individual companies and will also examine, at the direction of the Government, pricing practices in different sectors of industry. The Commission not only has a duty to identify excessive price increases and to recommend the steps needed to correct them, but in doing so to take full account of the wider economic background against which such price increases are put forward.

    The present statutory powers to control dividends expire on 31st July 1978. The ​ Government will introduce a Bill to extend the statutory control for a further 12 months from 1st August 1978 on the present basis, with the present provisions for exceptions and one new provision. From 1st August 1978 no company will be required by the controls to increase its dividend cover above the highest level achieved since the current controls began. This will enable companies to increase their dividends in line with profits or in line with the statutory limit, whichever is the higher, but they will not be permitted to distribute funds accumulated in the past. A separate announcement giving details of this provision will be made.

    The Government are convinced that the British people will not throw away the gains they have made over the last three years in the battle against inflation. The guidelines laid down in the White Paper offer negotiators the opportunity to use their freedom in collective bargaining to reach settlements with responsibility and moderation. By doing so they will encourage the regeneration of British industry, maintain living standards and make possible a continuing fall in unemployment.

  • Margaret Beckett – 1978 Speech on Parental Inspection of School Records

    Margaret Beckett – 1978 Speech on Parental Inspection of School Records

    Below is the text of the speech made by Margaret Beckett (then Margaret Jackson), the then Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science, in the House of Commons on 17 July 1978.

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) for raising this topic tonight, because I know that it is a matter of considerable concern to many hon. Members and to many of their constituents. I am happy to be able to say something about it, because although I readily accept that there is genuine concern about some of the real problems raised by the keeping of records in schools, there is some unreal anxiety. People imagine that things are recorded which are usually not recorded and that they are used for purposes for which they are usually not used. So although I have every sympathy with the real anxiety of many parents, this is not as simple an issue as some people may imagine.

    To begin with, I think there is general agreement among those who are involved in education in any way that school records of some kind should be kept not for the benefit of the teaching profession or for the benefit of any group of bureaucrats but for the benefit of the pupils. One of the factors that came out very clearly during our debate on the Green Paper and in many of our debates on education in the last few years was the anxiety among those concerned in education—this involves many parents—that there should be an accurate transmission of information, for example, between one school that a child attends and another, irrespective of whether it is a school from which a child transfers with a particular age of transfer or whether a child moves from one area to another.

    There is considerable anxiety that at present not enough information about a child’s progress and experience is accurately transferred from one school to another. This is a real anxiety, which has been expressed consistently and which, in a sense, is the other side of the argument that my hon. Friend quite rightly put.

    Local authorities are statutorily obliged to provide this sort of accurate information about a child’s academic record when the child transfers from one school to another, but even though they are obliged to do so by law, there is anxiety whether this is carried out properly. At present, there is no standard procedure for the keeping of school records or for the information there recorded, and local education authorities have complete discretion to decide what form the records take and, which concerns my hon. Friend as much, what access is available to those records and who shall have access to them.

    There is probably a considerable variation of practice in terms of what is contained in records and also in terms of their confidentiality. I understand that most schools keep some sort of written record of each pupil’s educational development, including information about any special factors which it is thought may affect the performance of that pupil. Usually, such records consist almost entirely of academic information which again is usually made available to parents in the term reports or annual reports which they receive on the progress of their children or which is explained at parents’ evenings or in other forms of communication which exist between school and home. But, because there is no standard form, this information varies. Sometimes it will be purely objective data such as test scores or examination results or statements about progress in a scheme of reading or mathematics. But in probably the majority of records that purely statistical factual information will be supplemented by the teacher’s own assessment of the pupil’s progress both in general terms and also in relation to the teacher’s assessment of the potential of the pupil.

    Such records and assessments are a very important part of the assessment of a child’s intellectual and educational development. As I said earlier, they are ​ important if a child is transferring from one school to another. Records of this kind also are usually used as a basis for academic references if a pupil applies for a job or for a place at a university or college. Because requests for references may be made some little time after a pupil has left the school concerned, secondary schools, for example, usually keep these records for five or six years after pupils have left their premises.
    As I said just now, academic information is usually available for parents throughout a child’s school career and to others in terms of references immediately afterwards or for a short period afterwards.

    But it is acknowledged, I think, that a small number of records will also contain observations which the school thinks—and perhaps others might think—ought to be kept confidential to the school in the pupil’s own best interests. It might be as simple as a reference to strains or difficulties in the pupil’s home life or sometimes to suspicions that the pupil is being neglected or maltreated or is in some way at risk.

    It is in cases of this kind that the issue of confidentiality arises, and it is particularly difficult to balance the general need, which my hon. Friend expressed and which I understand and have a great deal of sympathy with, for parents to have access to school records and to be able to see there is nothing on such records which they feel is inaccurate with the need sometimes for such records to be kept in the pupil’s own interests perhaps to safeguard individual pupils. Sometimes there is, indeed, a need for teachers to take note of adverse circumstances in a pupil’s home life, so that this can be treated and regarded with sympathy.

    I realise that this is exactly the kind of case which gives some people pause and where they feel that parents should have a right to see records and to see what is recorded. But I think that there is a certain difficulty here in that it is obviously more difficult for teachers to feel willing to set down, for example, their concern that a child may be subject to non-accidental damage if they know that the parent involved may at any time have access to records stating such a fact. If this is not so, clearly there will be many who feel that the parent has such a right, ​ and that it is in the parent’s and the child’s interests that they should see that such queries have been made.

    But I must tell my hon. Friend in all sincerity that it is my understanding, on the evidence that I have seen, comparatively small though it is, that it is more usually the rule that teachers are reluctant to suggest that a child has been subjected to non-accidental damage than the reverse, and that to my knowledge there are more cases of a teacher being unwilling either to commit his suspicions to paper or to convey them to colleagues than there are cases in which a teacher has wantonly put down such suspicions, which have caused damage or concern to the child or the parent, which have subsequently proved to be untrue.

    Certainly in many cases that have come to public attention, a wish has been expressed, whether fairly or otherwise in the circumstances at the time, that teachers and others concerned with the care of a particular child should have been more ready to make known their suspicions.

    Mr. Madden

    Does not the Minister agree that most concern surrounds the often highly subjective view which is sometimes expressed by teachers about the personality of children, which seems to encroach into assessments of psychological factors which are entirely outside the competence or training of teachers to make? Is it not in this area where, perhaps, changes in the range of information which is recorded would serve a very useful purpose and would overcome much of the concern and the abuse which undoubtedly can exist in some of the record systems which are currently in operation?

    Miss Jackson

    Yes, I entirely accept my hon. Friend’s contention on that point. I hope to come in a few moments to the case that he is putting. But many of the people who have put to the Department, in speech or in writing, the case that he is putting, of concern about the confidentiality of school records, have usually gone so far that they exclude anything other than the purest statistical recording. I accept entirely my hon. Friend’s contention that there is a difference between the recording of academic information and of information such as a ​ query about non-accidental damage, and the sort of personality judgment of a child. Of course I accept that. As I said, I shall come to that matter.

    I was making this point because the contention that my hon. Friend has just put forward is not usually the one that has been made to me, and I was anxious to get it on record that there is a very real difficulty which the teaching profession faces in cases of this kind.

    My hon. Friend will forgive me for also drawing to his attention another difficulty which is arising more frequently these days. For example, if a couple are separated or divorced and there is a dispute about the custody of the child, the school needs to be aware of such a fact. In fact, often such a dispute comes to the attention of the school because there is a query about whether records should be available to one or to both parents. It is necessary for the staff concerned with that child to be aware of such a difficulty. But either one or both of the parents may object to such a fact being recorded on the child’s formal record.

    This is the sort of difficulty which members of the teaching profession are facing. They are genuine difficulties. They are not merely a matter of people standing on their professional dignity or being absurd about the need for confidentiality because they wish to have attention turned away from any deficient judgment that they might make. Therefore, I accept my hon. Friend’s general contention that there are these two areas.

    As my hon. Friend said in his speech —I am glad to see that he is aware of it —in a recent circular we have made some inquiries of local authorities about the practice in school record keeping. We are hopeful that we shall get something of use from local authorities about their practice today. We are also considering the question whether, depending on what we hear from local authorities about their current practice, we should give advice about whether there should be some sort of standard form of records, and whether there should be some guidelines as to what kind of information is recorded. We are looking at all of these questions and we are very anxious to see them resolved satisfactorily.

    We have no interest in and no sympathy for seeing records maintained which are ​ used to the disadvantage of pupils or which may be used against them. Equally, we have no interest in seeing—because perhaps in the past in a minority of cases it has been misused—a system of genuinely needed education recording discarded.

    We are trying to find a middle way between these two opposing points of view. We are hopeful of finding a degree of agreement about the kinds of record that are needed. We are certainly intent on insisting that authorities and teachers require high standards of accuracy in the maintenance of such records as a prime consideration, and we are hopeful that, in the near future, whether there is need for legislative action or not, we will be able to get some sort of agreement about what kinds of record are kept and also to whom they are available.

    We have great sympathy with those who are concerned about this issue and are concerned that children should not be damaged by the maintenance of inaccurate records and that people who know the facts should be well informed about who should have access to the records. We are very sympathetic to that point of view.

    We are also concerned that some children should not be harmed by the fact that their records are not available and ​ that information is not available to schools to which they have transferred. Much of the problem that we have been discussing is resolved and becomes unnecessary to discuss if in many of our schools there is an adequate system of pastoral care.

    It seems to me that this is the way forward for many of these problems. If there is real continuity between one school and another and within schools among the teaching staffs, and if there is continuity of the staffs themselves, without the high turnover that we have seen in recent years, much of the need for written records that has been seen in the past will disappear.

    Nevertheless, I think that there will always be some need for an objective assessment of what a child has been doing during its educational career. I accept my hon. Friend’s argument about the necessity, nevertheless, for establishing to whom that record should be available. It is a matter that we are considering most sympathetically, and I hope that in the not-too-distant future we shall be able to say something that will satisfy my hon. Friend, if not perhaps all of those whose case he has been putting.

  • Max Madden – 1978 Speech on Parental Inspection of School Records

    Below is the text of the speech made by Max Madden, the then Labour MP for Sowerby, in the House of Commons on 17 July 1978.

    Despite the hour, I should like to draw attention to the need to give all parents the right to inspect information about their children which is kept by most schools. The information, normally recorded on a strictly confidential basis, can be a most important influence in a child’s progress from primary to secondary school, moving between schools and securing further and higher education or employment.

    Where, the magazine of the Advisory Centre for Education, surveyed 93 local education authorities in 1975. It found that all the authorities kept records. However, only two guaranteed that parents could see them and 24 left this to the discretion of head teachers. The rest did not offer parents any rights to inspect their children’s files.
    If there is a case for some information to be kept, it follows that access to the information must be allowed for parents and older children. Such a right is a basic freedom. It would also be an important and necessary safeguard against the recording of wrong or wholly irrelevant information, which can often follow a child for years, creating all kinds of needless problems and anxieties.

    The Where survey revealed the case of a boy who had once been accused of menacing and taking money from a younger boy. It was later found that the boy was entirely innocent. His father sought—and obtained—the assurance of the head teacher that any reference to the incident would not appear on the boy’s record. However, later, the innocent boy and his brother moved to a new school. The brother was greatly upset when a teacher, having asked his name, said “Oh, you’re the brother of the thief.” The boy’s record—and its mistakes—had moved with him.

    Another example concerns an older girl with a pleasant, open nature, who soon found a job in a company branch office after leaving school at 16. A fortnight later the manager said that head office ​ was questioning her appointment. After receiving her report, it said that she ought never to have been recruited, and she was put on three months’ probation.

    All the girl could assume was that the cause of the difficulty was that her report referred to a bad patch that she had experienced at school when she was 11, five years earlier.

    One record card, seen by the National Council for Civil Liberties, followed a child through a number of years and included the following remarks:

    “Mother says she’s nervous and highly strung. I think this could be inherited from mother. A bit concerned over S’s honesty—though as yet have no evidence”

    and later

    “Not convinced she always tells the complete truth: mum came round one evening and made one or two remarks that were not fully accurate”.

    As the NCCL said in its book, “Privacy: the Information Gatherers”

    “Such pseudo-psychological comments”

    —is S supposed to have inherited her mother’s nervousness, or merely imitated it?—

    “or the extraordinary assumption that a child should be blamed for a mother’s inaccuracies should never be allowed to remain unchallenged in a permanent record”.

    Other teachers have been asked to indicate, on a scale of 1 to 10, how a child rates on a series of attributes, including honesty, leadership, truthfulness and sycophancy. Records normally start in primary school, although one authority in the Midlands introduced into selected infant schools a recording system involving more than 130 questions. Standard record cards kept by Calderdale local education authority, on junior children in my constituency, have sections headed: “Relevant Home Conditions”, “Parental Attitude” and “Personality Attributes”.

    Marie Macey, lecturer in education at Bradford University, has tried, with considerable difficulty, to survey records kept by education authorities responsible for 10 million children. Writing in Where in May she mentions one county recording system which enabled some children, before the age of 5, to be officially labelled

    “unreliable and a source of difficulties”.

    She commented

    “LEAs have good reasons for denying even the existence of school cards; they have good ​ reasons for lying about their content and for refusing to supply sample cards to researchers. And given that the records referred to were blank ones, they have even better reasons for refusing parental access to a child’s filled-in card! What they have neither reason nor justification for is the unthinking perpetuation of such a system. It is difficult to find any education rationale for much of the information required; it is even more difficult to excuse the recording of such information on social or ‘human’ grounds, since its potential for harm is self-evident”.

    Her article concluded that

    “the issue of secrecy in school record-keeping is no trivial one, but has, in fact, far reaching implications and consequences for the individual, the family, school and society. The organisation of the British education system is such that no one appears to be ‘accountable’ to the public, so that the potential for misuse or abuse is inbuilt, just as trust and rights are excluded. It is not a complete exaggeration, either, to suggest that fear is a major component of such a system. Heads tend to refer to area/district officers whenever any ‘problems’ arise; similarly, local officers refer to the central area office at such times; teachers do not tell parents what is going on in schools for fear of personal and professional repercussions; parents refrain from asking too many ‘awkward’ questions either of schools or LEAs because they are afraid of adverse effects on their children. Everyone seems to live in fear of ‘the system’, yet quite who or what makes up this system seems to be a matter of considerable mystery.”

    I am pleased that the Department, in circular 14/77, asked LEAs to supply information, by 30th June, about record keeping, and that the Green Paper “Education in Schools” stressed the need for full regard to be paid to the rights of parents, teachers and pupils to know what material is recorded.

    However, many, including the organisations that I have mentioned and the Campaign Against School Spying, believe that a statutory right of access for parents is necessary. It would ensure a national right of access for parents to standard records and any other material which may be seen—and may influence—a third party and which may convey incorrect or irrelevant information about a child.

    The surveys to which I have referred are graphic and stark evidence of the abuse of the present system. I hope that the Minister will be able to underline the concern of her Department about this matter and to say that a clause will be inserted in an early education Bill to give parents a statutory right of access to this information. But before then there needs to be clear agreement among all ​ those responsible for education and the well-being of children about the information that is recorded. If the statutory right of inspection followed as a check against abuse and a safeguard against inaccurate and irrelevant information being recorded, it would be a useful reform. It would be widely welcomed by all parents, by many teachers who are concerned about the present situation and by a large number of children, particularly older children. I hope that the Minister will at least be able to express sympathy with such a reform even if she cannot announce firm action tonight.