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  • Peter Walker – 1974 Speech on Industry and Energy

    Below is the text of the speech made by Peter Walker, the then Conservative MP for Worcester, in the House of Commons on 13 March 1974.

    I congratulate the Minister, first, on being returned to the House of Commons in what was considered to be a marginal constituency against a diversity of opponents and, secondly, on taking up his new and important Cabinet office. It is said that when Winston Churchill returned to the Admiralty a message was immediately radioed to the Fleet “Winston is back”. Unfortunately, two-thirds of what would have been the right hon. Gentleman’s fleet sailed off to other commands the moment he returned. I am not certain whether that was at their request or at the instigation of the Prime Minister. One thing is certain: it was not at the suggestion of the Secretary of State for Industry.

    It is surprising that such a change should have taken place with no comment yesterday by the Prime Minister and no comment today by the Secretary of State for Industry. When in the past considerable changes have taken place in the construction of Whitehall there has been in-depth discussion with the Civil Service and sometimes White Papers have been published. The fragmentation of the former Department of Trade and ​ Industry in this way without discussion and without consultation will result in some considerable disadvantages to the Government.

    I bring this to the Government’s attention in the hope that they will be able to overcome the harm which fragmentation will do to the regional set-up of the Department. During the last two or three years there has been a considerable strengthening in the quality and grade of staff at the regional offices, and this has had a considerable impact upon the development of industry in the regions. In the regional offices there is a combination of staff capable of applying the various facets of the Industry Act, who can look after the export potentialities of the region and the industrial development certificate policy and positively encourage small businesses. To weaken those regional offices by splitting them up between three Departments will prove to be a considerable disadvantage.

    As Secretary of State for Industry the right hon. Gentleman will find grave disadvantage in not having in his Department information about the export and import substitution potential that automatically comes from the trade side of Government. There were many instances where we applied the Industry Act on the basis of information that we had from the trade side of the Department. That will no longer be available to the right hon. Gentleman.

    Likewise, in the development of major industrial investment programmes, it was of tremendous advantage in the Department of Trade and Industry—for example, when we embarked upon the steel modernisation programme—to call in the steel plant managers and link them with the international potentialities of exporting steel plants on the back of a healthy domestic demand. That type of linkage between domestic demand in industry, for which the right hon. Gentleman will have responsibility, and export potential will be severely handicapped by the new structure.

    The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned monopolies and mergers and the importance of having a positive policy to pursue the proposals that he has in mind. I presume that monopolies and mergers are no longer his responsibility ​ as they have been moved to the new Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection. In the old Department consumer aspects were looked into by the Minister responsible for consumer affairs; likewise, industrial policies and rationalisation aspects were very much concerned with the industry part of the Department. To have monopolies and mergers firmly with the consumer affairs side of government and not in the right hon. Gentleman’s hands will prove a considerable disadvantage.

    Another remarkable break-up has taken place as a result of the move without any form of consultation or national dialogue. The right hon. Gentleman will be responsible for the aircraft industry and the Secretary of State for Trade will be responsible for civil aviation. I am sure that the aircraft industry will be quick to tell him that its most important consideration is the procurement programme from the civil aviation side of what used to be the Department of Trade and Industry. Here again is an important break which will prove to the disadvantage of the future development of our economy.

    The right hon. Gentleman has said very little about inward investment. I think he will be advised by his right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Mr. Lever) that one of the most important aspects of any Government policy over the next few years will be the encouragement of inward investment into this country. The right hon. Gentleman has no international presence in his new post. To have no international presence at a time when we want to encourage inward investment will be a grave and serious disadvantage.

    I turn now to the Government’s outward investment policies. There may come a time when the Secretary of State for Industry should be actively engaged in encouraging outward investment from this country. The right hon. Gentleman’s new Department will not have the strength to carry out that function.

    Mr. George Cunningham (Islington, South and Finsbury)

    Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the outgoing Government intended that there should be large foreign investment in the energy industry in this country and yet decided ​ to hive off the energy side from the Department of Trade and Industry?

    Mr. Walker

    I know of no decision to have large outside investment in the energy industry in this country. It was not the policy of the then Government.

    On all these aspects there is no doubt that seemingly this decision was taken not on the basis of any logic about Whitehall or any improvement in the efficiency of developing commercial strategy, but on the basis of trying to find separate Cabinet posts for three Ministers.

    I welcome the Prime Minister’s approach in 1974 as opposed to the approach that he made on forming a Government in 1964. We do not know whether this new approach is due to the size of his minority or to the lessons that he learned from the experiences of 1964. It is interesting to note that in 1964 his first task was to maximise the importance of the £800 million deficit, and, having got this out of perspective, his actions in increasing consumer demand soon shattered confidence abroad. He has not made that mistake on this occasion. Yesterday he recited how stagnation, the rising unemployment that took place in the regions during the period of the last Labour Government and the lack of achieving the social service success that he endeavoured to obtain was the price that he paid for the manner in which he handled the situation then.

    The Prime Minister was right to emphasise the record export order books of British industry at this time. I am pleased that the Secretary of State for Industry today followed the Prime Minister’s example by correctly emphasising the potential opportunities that now exist instead of emphasising that the size and magnitude of the deficit on trade which faces the country has to be met by massive deflationary policies.

    Now that the Government recognise the true reality of the deficit on our trade, resulting from a massive increase in the importation of new machinery, vital raw materials and, the biggest factor, the enormous increase in world prices, they must consider the approach that they will bring to the economic scene. There is no doubt that if we had pursued the policies that the then Opposition advocated of going for heavy deflationary ​ policies over the last 12 months, we would have crippled the investment potentiality of this country for a generation. It was right not to pursue that policy.
    I hope that the Government will genuinely pursue the twin objectives outlined by the Secretary of State for Industry of exports and investment as the two main priorities.

    Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

    As a man who started his business career by running off with the Co-op divi and finishing up in Government, leaving us with a deficit on 31st December of £2,348 million, and rising every minute, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in his more relaxed way of life, he will now be going back to Slater-Walker to reorganise its many disparate interests not only here but abroad?

    Mr. Walker

    No. I shall be staying here to listen to the eloquent speeches so constantly made by the hon. Gentleman. One would miss his wit far too much if one lost any opportunity of being in the House.

    I wonder how the Government hope to give priority to exports and investment when they are already advocating having no statutory wages policy. To have a free-for-all in wages, to increase taxation on potential savers in this country and to increase consumer demand by various items of public expenditure in combination is a policy which will be of considerable disadvantage both to exports and to investment.

    I hope that the new Secretary of State for Trade will get into perspective the importance of Common Market trade to the future of our export programme. When the previous Labour Government left office our exports to Common Market countries were £2,355 million a year. They are now over £4,000 million a year, comprising nearly a third of our total exports. Therefore, the Secretary of State for Trade, with his hostility to Europe, must be very careful in his negotiations not to endanger that considerable proportion of our trade. Not only is it a substantial proportion, but it is one of the fastest rising areas of our trade. Whereas our exports nationally went up by 26 per cent. last year, our exports to the Community went up by 39 per ​ cent. It was a major contribution to our export drive, and for the Government to negotiate on Europe on a basis that would handicap that trade would be of considerable disadvantage to us.

    I hope, too, that, on the question of exports, the Government will pay far greater respect to new markets in the world—such as Iran—than they did when they were in opposition. I say that because these markets in the Middle East will be of considerable importance to our future trade potentiality. The comments made by hon. Gentlemen opposite when we were negotiating trade agreements with Iran were anything but friendly and tended to be hostile to such arrangements, and I hope that there will be moves by the Government to repair the bad reputation which they have in those countries.

    I hope that the Secretary of State for Industry will do everything in his power to encourage the maximum increase in export prices because there is an immense opportunity for us to increase and improve our export performance. Our goods are exceedingly competitive in world markets, and it must be in our interests to raise prices to the maximum levels obtainable in those markets. That means that the profits of the companies concerned will rise. When ICI declared record profits recently many hostile remarks were made about them, but I hope that the Government will recognise that a great deal of that increase resulted from exports. It would be disastrous if the Government were to do anything other than encourage the maximum profits from export markets, but so far there is no indication that they intend to encourage exporters in that way.

    The Government must encourage investment. The Secretary of State for Industry said that a prime task would be to get far more investment into British industry and re-equip it. The Prime Minister has described himself as the custodian of the manifesto. Fortunately, judging from his speech yesterday, the right hon. Gentleman interprets his rôle of custodian as that of seeing that the manifesto’s proposals are kept under lock and key, and we commend him on that decision.

    I hope that the Secretary of State for Industry realises that real damage is done to investment by the existence of nationalisation proposals. One cannot illustrate ​ that better than by considering the record of investment in the steel industry. Yesterday the Prime Minister mentioned steel as one of the potential shortages which could handicap future economic growth. Any student of the steel industry will recognise that from 1964 to 1966 steel investment went down from £180 million a year to £50 million because of the threat of nationalisation. During the period after nationalisation the industry was unable to start its investment programme, and that meant that from 1963 to 1970 steel investment was more than halved, and not under me but under you. [Interruption.] I apologise, Mr. Speaker, because you certainly would not be guilty of such policies. The Prime Minister was responsible for the biggest drop in steel investment since the war, and the Conservative Government inherited the problem of the lack of steel capacity.

    The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson)

    The right hon. Gentleman was most kind to refer to what I said yesterday about the steel shortage. I said that it was due to the three-day week. I cannot understand why no one from the Opposition Front Bench has mentioned that in this debate.

    Mr. Walker

    If the right hon. Gentleman had taken an interest in these matters during the week before the General Election he would have known that long before the three-day week was introduced there was a shortage of steel because of the lack of investment due to his policies. The Prime Minister made it clear yesterday that no nationalisation proposals would be introduced without going through the full parliamentary process. The right hon. Gentleman is well aware that no nationalisation proposal could go through the full parliamentary procedure in this Parliament. He has, by that commitment, shown that during this Parliament he does not intend to proceed with any nationalisation proposals. If that is so, it would be in the interests of encouraging investment in the aircraft, shipbuilding, pharmaceutical, road haulage and machine tool industries if the Government were to make it clear that they have no intention of introducing such proposals.

    Mr. Laurie Pavitt (Brent, South)

    The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the pharmaceutical industry. Is he aware ​ that 75 per cent. of National Health Service purchases are from foreign-owned companies?

    Mr. Walker

    That industry is one of our major exporters, and I believe that if the Secretary of State for Industry consults the workers before introducing nationalisation proposals he will not proceed with its nationalisation.

    Mr. Benn

    As the right hon. Gentleman was associated with the take-over of a number of firms without any pretence of consultation with the people whose futures were at stake, perhaps he will recognise that our proposals for public ownership follow long and deep consultations with the workers involved and that in every case the industry concerned has suffered from private management.

    Mr. Walker

    I still remember the telegram that I received from the shop stewards of Rolls-Royce about the complete lack of consultation by the right hon. Gentleman on his nationalisation proposals. That was to be done without any consultation with anybody, and originally without compensation. We know how shallow is the consultation by hon. Gentlemen on the Government side.

    Nationalisation proposals cannot be anything but a discouragement to investment in a number of vital spheres, such as the machine tool industry. I hope that, in the climate of this Parliament, instead of hiding behind the words in the Gracious Speech and saying that the full parliamentary process will be adopted for any nationalisation proposals, the Government will come clean and say that they have no intention of nationalising this industry during this Parliament.

    The Government will have to deal with the manner in which they will raise money for their proposals to increase public expenditure. They must face the reality of some of the myths which they created when in opposition about where the money would come from. There was the myth that it would all come from North Sea oil. It was interesting to hear the Secretary of State for Industry say this afternoon that we should have to wait for that and that people must not rely on it too much as it is very much in the future, because during the election campaign, whenever it was asked where the money would come from, it was said that ​ more money would be obtained from North Sea oil. The Government now know that it will be several years before there will be a chance of taxing profits from North Sea oil, because it will not be available for about that period.

    The same comment applies to company profits. Another bogy was that the big corporations would be taxed far more than they are now, but, with dividend restraint and price restrictions limiting profit margins at home, the only possible scope for increasing taxation is in company profits made from exports, and that is not the way to encourage people to export.

    On the question of capital gains, the Financial Times ordinary index is lower than it was four years ago or 10 years ago, and the Government will not have a great source of revenue there. The fact is that if the Government embark on the heavy increases in taxation which they have in mind they will have to tax savings, and that is not the way to encourage investment.

    The Secretary of State will soon discover that with the present problem of liquidity and of trying to compete abroad it is vital to maintain a healthy capital market here. If the right hon. Gentleman does not do that he will lose the confidence of industry, which is vital to his programme to increase investment. In addition, he will lose confidence abroad. I hope that the more commonsense approach to the problem of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Central in his new rôle will influence the decisions that the Government take.

    During our three and a half years in office we accepted that the Government had many functions to perform in a modern free enterprise society. The Government have a duty to pursue fiscal policies that will encourage growth. They must help shape the economy so that it is equipped to benefit as fully as possible from the changing pattern of world trade. The Government must set parameters for the protection of the natural environment and improving wherever possible the manmade environment. They have to decide upon the proportion of resources to be allocated to the social services. They have to provide an education system that not only enriches people’s minds throughout their lives but opens up more possibilities of equality of opportunity. They have to see that the framework of law in which the corporation operates is equable, open and fully accountable to the nation as a whole. They have to see that the power of the consumer is strong enough to have its proper impact upon the quality and diversity of products.

    The Government have to see that forward-looking regional policies are pursued so that the fruits of the new capitalism are not concentrated on any one region but are shared fairly throughout the nation. They have to see that training and retraining facilities for those engaged in industry are tackled to meet the challenges of technological change.

    In three and a half years we did bring growth back to the economy; we did help to reshape the economy to meet new challenges overseas; we did bring about a build-up of the major investment programme from which the economy will now benefit.

    Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster)

    Will my right hon. Friend accept the thanks of my constituency for restoring growth to that area by giving it intermediate status?

    Mr. Walker

    It was indeed the regions of the North-West and North-East and Wales and Scotland, where unemployment was rising during the last years of the previous Labour Government, which benefited most from the growth in the economy which we achieved. We devoted far more of the nation’s resources to the social services and education than our predecessors did. We prepared the legislation to make corporations more accountable. We substantially improved the power of the consumer and we brought many new jobs and opportunities to the regions most in need of them.

    But in all these areas we have much further progress to make, and it is our intention to use such period of opposition as is available to us to prepare for further progress towards the creation of a society enjoying all the advantages from man’s enterprise and initiative and harnessing the economic growth he creates to bringing about a better quality of society.

  • Tony Benn – 1974 Speech on Industry and Energy

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Benn, the Secretary of State for Industry, in the House of Commons on 13 March 1974.

    In common with all other Ministers my task will be to prepare, to discuss and then, subject to Cabinet priorities, to bring before Parliament the proposals put forward to the country by the Government. First, however, I should like to deal with the immediate situation. The main task facing the Government on taking office was to settle the miners’ dispute, to lift the energy restrictions and to allow British industry to get back to full-time working by ending the three-day week, which we argued was quite unnecessary. These three objectives have already been achieved. Although we shall never catch up entirely with the production lost during that period—nor will the wages lost be replaced—at least the recovery period has begun.

    In looking forward there are some encouraging features which I think the House would wish to know. First, output held up better than was feared, and since many firms gave priority to export customers the loss of exports was less than might have happened. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy will be reporting on the resumption of power supplies to industry and the recovery of coal production and oil supplies.

    For my part, I can tell the House that the steel industry should be back to near normal by April. Order books are ​ healthy and most of industry should be working normally within a month, although there are bound to be some sectors, heavily dependent on component supplies, whose work programmes were severely disrupted and will take longer. Some bottlenecks of supplies are bound to arise, and there may be cash flow difficulties.

    My Department is at the disposal of firms which may be affected and they should get in touch with the regional offices or with the Department centrally if they want help. Some hon. Members have already raised individual difficulties with me where these have arisen in their constituencies, and I hope that other hon. Members who have problems reported to them will also feel free to get in touch with me or my fellow Ministers.

    I wish to pay tribute to the co-operation in industry in minimising the difficulties that have been experienced and to those who are now showing such determination in catching up with as much as possible of what has been lost and in getting production back to full swing.

    Even though the atmosphere has improved and the immediate recovery prospects are better than might have been expected, it would be totally wrong to underestimate the magnitude of the task of industrial renewal which now confronts Britain, British industry and hence Parliament itself.

    The policies which we developed in Opposition and put before the people in the election were designed to meet problems in the national interest. They now have an added relevance, for the mining strike masked the other more fundamental economic and industrial problems to which oil price increases have added an extra dimension. The prospects of national advantage that may accrue through the development of North Sea and Celtic Sea gas and oil are encouraging, but it would be foolish for any of us to suppose that all that has to be done is to mark time until we are saved by an oil bonanza which will return us to an era of automatic prosperity.

    Everybody recognises that Britain must concentrate on exports and on building a strong industrial base, without which we cannot furnish those exports. We also need investment in our energy and energy-saving programmes and to secure the ​ living standards and the public service provision to which our people are entitled.

    Let me turn to the problems of investment with which my Department is deeply concerned. On the industrial side the main immediate problems may arise from the fact that the three-day week, with its associated cash flow consequences, could lead to some deferment of investment plans. I must tell the House frankly that we cannot now count upon earlier estimates of an increase of 12 per cent. to 14 per cent. in manufacturing investment to be realised this year.

    Even if the lower figure of 12 per cent. had been reached it would only have restored the position to that level which we had in 1970, when the last Labour Government left office.

    Mr. Peter Emery (Honiton)

    As the right hon. Gentleman has outlined the matter so concisely, will he give an assurance that he and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will encourage profits so that he can get the investment from industry and thus be able to get what he wants?

    Mr. Benn

    If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to develop the argument in my own way he will see that I shall turn to that question. He may also note that the fall in profits in 1974 will be attributable to the three-day week which he and his colleagues introduced in the pursuit of their policy.

    Industrialists and trade union leaders have long agreed that our long-term prospects depend on getting investment levels nearer to those that have been achieved by other major industrial countries. We must use what we have better and select what we need in quality, and see that the total figures rise.

    The problems of using our existing investment effectively and of getting the level up explain why the Gracious Speech referred to the

    “urgent consultation on measures to encourage the development and re-equipment of industry.”

    These matters have already been touched on in general terms when the TUC and CBI came to 10 Downing Street and were raised when the CBI came to see me, and at the NEDC meeting on Monday. They will be discussed in detail with the nationalised industries, major companies and ​ individual trade unions at almost all the meetings which I shall be having with them.

    Investment will also feature very much in the many discussions we hope to have in Scotland and Wales, and the English regions. This explains why high priority has to be given to the stimulation of regional development. My colleagues in the Department and I look forward to these discussions.

    As the House knows, there is a dual vulnerability in development areas in the redundancy among managers as well as workers which may occur either through under-investment or the failure to attract new investment. When these companies are also victims of take-overs and asset stripping the problems are intensified.

    With regard to the regional employment premium, we shall at least maintain the existing arrangement while considering further possibilities for the future.

    It is often argued that we cannot get investment up until confidence has been established. Obviously, the two go together. But I invite the House to consider for a moment just what confidence really is. It has been interpreted in the past simply and solely as constituting political support of the City of London or the international financial community in the Government of the day, and their policies, with the implication that whatever price they might exact in return for that support had to be paid by Governments adopting policies, however harsh, dictated by them.

    Obviously, any nation must enjoy international confidence, but if there is one lesson we have learned over the past three months it is that the confidence of working people in their Government and in their own future is also an essential ingredient in national confidence, and for that matter in international confidence, too.

    The last Government initially enjoyed the confidence of the City and industry—a confidence gained partly in return for its commitment to policies which were hostile to the trade unions. In the ensuing confrontation, it should be noted, the last Government lost the confidence of working people and then some of its own supporters as well.

    This Government put to the electors a new social contract as the main plank in ​ their programme, not only because we believe—[interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman wishes to intervene I shall be happy to give way.

    Sir Harmar Nicholls (Peterborough)

    Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he is talking nonsense when he suggests that policies which encouraged the City and industry were against the interest of the workers, because it was recognised that both have to go together? The right hon. Gentleman’s father remembered that capital and labour must go together and must not be disturbed by such words as he is using.

    Mr. Benn

    The hon. Gentleman at least amplified the monosyllabic insults he was casting by a rather inadequate forecast of the speech he might hope to make. I hope that the House will allow these matters to be discussed, because the characteristic of the past three months has been a breakdown in confidence in the country, which was due—this is the argument we put forward and adhered to—to the view the Government adopted towards workpeople and their problems over a wide range of policy.

    This Government put to the electors a new social contract as the main plank in their programme, not only because we believe in the elements in that contract but because we do not believe that confidence can be restored without such a new contract based upon policies designed to bring about a shift in the balance of power and wealth. The new social contract which we are set upon achieving has implications for industrial policy as well as for taxation policy, housing policy or social policy.

    In developing our industrial strategy for the period ahead, we have the benefit of much experience. Almost everything has been tried at least once—[An HON. MEMBER: “Including you.] If the hon. Gentleman will listen to me, he will hear me say that we have the benefit of a great deal of experience which we can draw on in developing our policies.
    Successive Governments have tried rigid centralised controls and an abandonment of controls. They have tried restricting expansion to achieve a foreign surplus, and a dash for growth at the expense of a huge payments deficit. Apart from all our macro-economic solutions, we have been through the whole gamut of micro-industrial policies, from propping up lame ducks to killing them off, and back again.

    The one constant element throughout this long history of policy has been the fact that these alternatives have been largely centrally decided and imposed and have been seen as problems of economics and management rather than as problems of politics and consent. Indeed, it is a curious paradox that the most rigid and comprehensive armoury of central controls ever instituted over the entire range of the British economy came from a party dedicated to free enterprise and market forces, which, when they were applied, developed in a direction which threatened and weakened the authority of Parliament.

    Any constructive long-term industrial strategy must be developed by the longer, slower route of real consultation and power sharing, all done more openly. There is no alternative. I have no intention of repeating the tragedy of the long and damaging confrontation with labour which has occurred over the past three years by setting out on a long and equally damaging confrontation with the CBI and the management of British industry. I am not seeking a woolly consensus that dodges difficult issues or delays necessary adjustments by covering them up, but it is central to my argument that the most difficult industrial issues and the necessary adjustments that everyone in Britain must make can be made only after the most detailed and painstaking joint discussion. It is no use asking people in industry to act responsibly if they are the victims of decisions taken irresponsibly.

    People, including workers and managers, are entitled to know the choices before the decisions are made and to feel that those decisions are taken in the interests of the community. Workers up to and including skilled industrial management, and Government, with their even wider responsibilities to the nation, are inextricably bound up together, and the relationship between all three must reflect that reality.

    Sir Derek Walker-Smith (Hertfordshire, East)

    May we take it from what the right hon. Gentleman has just said that he or his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade—whoever will have ​ the responsibility—will be taking an early opportunity to issue a Green Paper for discussion on the two-tier structure of companies and workers’ participation therein?

    Mr. Benn

    As the previous Labour Government introduced the concept of a Green Paper and managed to develop a system of open government that was closed in many areas by its successors, I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will recognise that when we talk about the desirability of open discussion that is in line with our practice, and certainly with our intentions. I cannot speak for my right hon. Friend’s Department, because I am talking about my own, but it is part of my argument that if decisions are to succeed they must be reached after full discussion.

    Disengagement has been tried and has failed. What we must decide now is the nature of the engagement that there must be, the rules that will govern it, the consultation that will accompany it, and the national purposes it must serve.
    In hard, practical terms, there must be as close a relationship between the Department of Industry and the trade union movement as has long existed and must remain between my Department and industrial management. It will be my firm resolve to develop those relationships with the TUC and national trades unions, and through them with workers at the shopfloor level, to the same degree as now exists with the CBI, top industrial management and local management.
    Bringing the workers into industrial discussions and planning at Government level alongside management is a much bigger task than might appear, and it will take time. Consultative arrangements on this scale do not now exist. As they come into operation, they will necessarily affect the flow of industrial decisions that have hitherto been based upon the one-sided contacts with industrial management and the City.

    It might be argued that if workers who are likely to be affected by a wide range of industrial decisions are really to be consulted before those decisions are reached, the pace of decision making will be slowed down. That is true, but the compensating advantage is that the decisions will be more likely to be right and more likely to be acceptable.

    Arbitrary decisions followed by predictable resistance and long-term frustration constitute an even more lengthy and expensive process. Executive management is just as concerned with this problem.

    Who knows what would have happened if some of the skill and energy generated by the Clydeside shipyard workers during their campaign for the right to work had been available more directly to influence Government decisions about the shipbuilding industry, or had been released to serve that industry much earlier still?

    In inviting constructive contributions from workers as well as national trade union officers before industrial policy decisions are made—and that is what I am doing—we shall necessarily be obliged to consider very seriously what it is that they are saying to us. It is amazing that in 1974 it should be necessary to make a conscious decision to invite systematically the views of workers in addition to receiving the opinions of those who own or manage our industrial enterprises, with whom consultations will and must continue.

    Mr. Tom King (Bridgwater)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that those workers in industries affected by the threat of nationalisation will have the right to be consulted on the question whether they wish to be nationalised?

    Mr. Benn

    The hon. Gentleman had better allow me to continue with my speech. If he will cast his mind back over the history of public ownership he will recall that it was the miners and the railwaymen who campaigned continuously for the public ownership of their industries and, indeed, that the policy of denationalisation to which some members of the Opposition were attracted was frustrated by the knowledge that, whatever may be the difficulties in the public sector, the commitment of those who work in the public sector to its continuation is very deep. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue with my speech he will see the answer that I propose to give to the question that he has put.

    Mr. Cyril Smith (Rochdale)

    I welcome the Minister’s conversion to the policy of the Liberal Party. Should not one of the policies to which he has just referred also be applied to nationalised industries?

    Mr. Benn

    I am coming to the proposals, but neither I nor my party share the proposals on industrial democracy that the hon. Gentleman has put forward, because we believe them to be a form of window dressing. I hope to carry him with me—[Laughter.]—or perhaps the hon. Gentleman would carry me with him—in considering the need for much closer consultation between Government and the trade union movement in the areas of policy for which Government are responsible. I am not discussing industrial democracy; I am talking about relations between my Department and the trade unions.

    I come now to the question put to me by the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King). The industrial policy proposals which form the central part of the manifesto upon which the Labour Party fought the election were in fact produced after consultation with the trade unions—and others—on the basis that I have described. If the hon. Gentleman had waited, he would have heard me say that. If he looks at the proposals that have been published, for example, on the shipbuilding industry, he will find that they emerged after the longest and most detailed discussion with the representatives of the workers in the shipbuilding industry.

    I do not ask the House to accept our proposals just because they were arrived at by that process, or to neglect other interests that have to be considered, but I do recommend the proposals to the House for serious study and consideration, because they embody opinions that this nation cannot afford to ignore or set aside if a coherent industrial strategy is to be evolved.

    The provisions of the proposed Industry Act outlined in our programme, and which will form the basis of the Bill—
    “to consolidate and develop existing legislation”—

    to use the words of the Gracious Speech—contain provisions that Labour thinks necessary for such a strategy. The Bill would, for example, give to the Government, amongst other things, the power ​ to obtain information and to make it more generally available, the power to make industrial decision making more accountable, the power in the national interest to prevent foreign take-overs and the power to put in an official trustee to assume temporary control of any company which fails to meet its responsibilities to its workers, its customers or the community. All this stems from the experience of recent years.

    Similarly, the proposal to introduce planning agreements with major industrial enterprises not only meets the requirements of those who work in the firms concerned and those who live in the areas where jobs are hardest to come by but are also clearly in the national interest if we mean to harness our productive potential to the urgent tasks of industrial renewal.

    Even the proposals for the extension of public ownership, supposedly so controversial, emerge from those who work in industries where the present structure either condemns them to disorganised decline or hampers their prospects of long-term expansion and development. We are certainly not committed to the forms of public ownership which have been followed in the past, since neither the great public corporations nor the private company status of Rolls-Royce (1971) seem to us to constitute the ultimate wisdom of public sector management. The National Enterprise Board to which the Prime Minister referred yesterday is one such new form of public ownership which merits serious consideration.

    As the Prime Minister made clear, the House of Commons will have the opportunity not only of debating and voting upon the Industry Bill but also upon any extensions of public ownership that will be submitted to Parliament for decision through the full parliamentary legislative process.

    When the provisions of the Industry Bill are published they will be seen to be founded upon precedents created in many cases by the previous Government, but the provisions of the Bill, by contrast, will tend towards a dispersal of power rather than its centralisation. This, too, will be the keynote of any proposals for real industrial democracy that may in due time come before Parliament. I very much hope that the House will reserve ​ its judgment upon all these proposals until it has had a chance to study them, and that hon. Members will relate what is put before them to their experience in their own constituencies.

    My experience, both as a constituency Member of Parliament and as a former Minister with similar responsibilities to the ones I now exercise, has highlighted some of the misuse and abuse of industrial and financial power at the expense of professional managers and workers, and such gaps in the network of public accountability we intend to fill.
    This, then, is the way in which I intend to approach my task as Industry Secretary. The proposals that I shall put forward will all be based upon proper consultation, and will be designed to meet the national interest, and on that basis I shall seek the support of the House for them. The issues of public policy that they raise will all be brought out into the open for real debate in public in the House of Commons, where the power of decision lies and must lie.

  • Patrick Mayhew – 1974 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made by Patrick Mayhew, the then Conservative MP for Royal Tunbridge Wells, in the House of Commons on 3 April 1974.

    No maiden speaker can rise in the House of Commons without a considerable feeling of alarm. To borrow a phrase from Clause 2 of this Bill, I feel that my “instruction, training and supervision” have been woefully inadequate for the task.

    My constituency has been carved out of the old constituency of Tonbridge and the old constituency of Ashford. I am the successor of two distinguished and long-serving Members. The portion that I have gained from the old Tonbridge constituency was for 17 years represented by Mr. Dick Hornby. Many hon. Members have told me since my arrival in what high regard he was held here—a regard which is matched by that of his constituents. The same is true, of course, of my predecessor for the Ashford portion of the constituency, still happily in this House as the right hon. Member for the new constituency of Ashford (Mr. Deedes) who has for many years served with the greatest distinction and industry the interests of what are now my constituents. If I can approach the standard of service that they have given I shall be doing a very good job. I hope in time that I may aspire to that height.

    My constituency extends over a far wider area than its name might suggest. Although it takes its name from the gracious town of Tunbridge Wells it extends from country villages in the west, like Speldhurst, right over to other villages like Benenden, Sandhurst and Hawkhurst in the east. It contains little industry but much agriculture.

    Agriculture is not to be brought within the ambit of the Bill but I am sure that all hon. Members with a knowledge of agriculture will agree that the problems of the safety, health and welfare of its employees need no less careful scrutiny and care than the problems of the factory worker. I hope that in due course they will receive it.

    I welcome the Bill because it provides an opportunity for Parliament to bring within the ambit of a single piece of legislation all the safety, health and welfare problems of those working in the factories. Those who have had to deal in their private or professional lives with the problems of this nature in industry recognise the jungle into which the law has strayed. An hon. Member opposite has already referred to the standard textbook of Redgrave on the Factory Acts and to Mr. Munkman’s work on employer’s liability. The editors of those works do their best to lead the way through this jungle, but all who have to deal professionally with these problems will welcome the Bill as a fresh start on integrating all the legislation which will eventually apply, whether immediately under the provisions of the Bill or under regulations made under it.

    I hope that safety committees can become universal. In training lies one of the most fruitful possibilities for reducing the terrible toll of accident and injury which so many hon. Members have mentioned. Statistics are bad enough, but when one has to see the physical injuries that are inflicted in a moment of carelessness and whose consequences can remain with the victim for the rest of his life and perhaps with his family, with terrible financial consequences, one has brought home to one the urgency of the problem.

    It is true that many accidents are caused by negligence or breach of their statutory duty by employers, but one should not suppose that nearly all of them are. Many are caused by a moment’s carelessness, or perhaps the taking of a short cut towards the end of a day by a workman who is doing a boring job and who, as the hours have gone by, has become a victim of apathy, has, perhaps, become sleepy and bored.

    I believe that it is in the sector of training that there is the best chance of making workpeople more safety conscious than they are in many cases. Of course it is true that some employers connive at machines being operated with the safety guards not in position, for example. The majority do not, but there are many who do. If greater attention is paid to training in safety matters there will be far fewer workpeople who will want to operate machines in that dangerous condition, notwithstanding that it may be easier to operate them without the safety guards in position.

    I hope, therefore, that great attention will be paid to the provision of safety committees, and to the operating of those committees, so that everyone undergoes training, and that the provision for proper instruction and training which is referred to in Clause 2(2) of the Bill will be part of the responsibility of the safety committee. I mean by that that I hope that it will have a part in devising and providing the training. If these committees can be brought into programmes of training and instruction, that would be a very good thing.

    The second point is that a great deal of attention must be paid to the problem of enforcing the obligations which the Bill lays down, primarily upon the employer but also upon the workman. My experience has been that, while making every allowance for the fact that the Factory Inspectorate is understaffed, the manner in which decisions are taken whether to prosecute in the case of a breach of obligation is in some cases almost capricious. In many cases it appears to have been taken where there has been a lot of publicity, or a very tragic accident and, perhaps, a death, but where the case against the employer on breach of duty has been very thin; whereas in many other cases of flagrant breach, where there can scarcely have been any defence against prosecution, no prosecution has taken place. That is so in many cases that one has come across where warnings have been given and matters have been brought to the attention of employers which fully merited a prosecution. We must have a much tougher standard on the part of an increased and expanded Factory Inspectorate than has been the case for many years past.

    Mention has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North (Mr. Miscampbell) of a possible change in the law following the report of Lord Pearson’s Royal Commission. We may have—I express no view on it at this stage—a system of non-fault liability replacing our present system, in which one has to prove in common law negligence on the part of the employer or breach of statutory duty in order to found a claim for civil liability. If we have a non-fault system of liability as a result of recommendations of Lord Pearson’s Commission then all the more will it be necessary for the Factory Inspectorate to take a far tougher line and for there to be more prosecutions in the case of breach; because the discipline and sanction that the employers’ liability insurance companies to some extent provide at present will have gone. I hope, therefore, that great attention will be paid to the question of enforcement.

    I should like to pick up a point made by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Wilson), who drew attention to the words so far as is reasonably practicable where they apply in the clauses at the beginning of the Bill and which lay down the obligations and duties of employers. Taking Clause 2, the hon. Gentleman thought that it would be proper to delete those words so as to make an absolute liability rest upon employers. As I understood it, he applied that to all the early clauses of the Bill where those duties are set out. I can only say that one has to remember that this portion of the Bill is imposing a criminal liability upon employers and not a civil liability. I should be very sorry indeed to see legislation which made the employer strictly liable for any circumstance where it could be shown that the workman was not at the given moment safe or that he did not have risks to his health at any given moment. To impose strict liability would be to make him an insurer, and that seems to be wholly foreign to our concept of criminal law.

    Lastly, I should like to emphasise and support the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, North when he drew attention to Clauses 39 and 41, where the burden of proof whether something is reasonably practicable is laid upon the employer, and then, in Clause 41, a defence is provided for him whereby if he shows that he has exercised “all due diligence” he can avoid conviction. The words “all due diligence” do seem to have the makings of a lawyer’s picnic. We are all used to the concept of reasonable care. It is well understood in the courts. It has been developed in a way which takes account of changing standards and problems. The words “all due diligence” pose the question of how much diligence is due. I hope that consideration will be given to amending that phraseology.

    I am sure that much can be done in Committee to improve the Bill. Nevertheless I warmly welcome it. Our industry is the mainstay of our economy and the livelihood of our nation depends upon it. The Bill provides a means of safeguarding more effectively the lives of those who serve industry.

  • Tam Dalyell – 1974 Speech on Tidal Power

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tam Dalyell, the then Labour MP for West Lothian, in the House of Commons on 9 January 1974.

    I wish to raise the question of a feasibility study for barrages and tidal power. When short-term problems look daunting there is a temptation to desert to the long term, which may appear to be easier. It is my purpose to follow up an undertaking given by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on 10th December. I asked the right hon. Gentleman: Whereas it is true that when last looked at, in the middle 1960s, the Solway barrage was economically unattractive, is the Secretary of State aware that some people now seriously think that it might be economically attractive?

    The Secretary of State replied: I shall look specifically at that scheme to see whether that is so, but my advice is that the barrage schemes available to us could not compete with the nuclear potentiality. Obviously I shall check on this specific scheme.”—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th December 1973 ; Vol. 866, c. 10.] I followed up that remark and the statement of the Secretary of State for Scotland on 12th December 1973. The right hon. Gentleman said: The situation that we face at the moment is such that any possible new source of energy should be examined.”—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th December 1973; Vol. 866, c. 406.] It is about 10 years ago to the month that I went, at the suggestion of a previous Conservative Minister, now Lord Errol, accompanied by Dr. Robert Drew, then of Chapelcross, to see Sir William Penney, then Chairman of the Atomic Energy Authority, about the possibility of a Solway barrage scheme combining tidal and nuclear power. Perhaps because we exaggerated our case and perhaps because the relative costs of fuel looked different in 1964 from costs in 1974, we received a fairly stony reply. The purpose of the debate is to start to scrutinise the action which the Government have promised to take and make just two points which suggest that what may have been irrelevant in the epoch of cheap oil deserves a hard, long and cool look today.

    Within the limit of the time available I shall make general points that would apply either to the Solway or to the Severn. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer), formerly Chairman of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, has kindly agreed to speak on the special subject of the Severn.

    First, progress has been made in France and Russia. Having visited Rance, in Brittany, I am aware that there have been disappointments about electricity output, although the French have 24 10-megawatt units. The Rance problems have been basically those of civil engineering and turbine construction. They do not stem from theoretical reasons against tidal energy. Rance does not rely on the crucial combination of tidal energy and pump storage by nuclear power. The periods of generation are dependent on the tide. That may not necessarily be so in the kind of scheme put forward for the Solway and the Severn. In the same breath I should say that the Government might do well to approach the Russians and talk to them about what they have been doing in Kislaya Bay, on the White Sea.

    Secondly, whereas in the past the fundamental difficulty for tidal generation has been the difference between the lunar and the solar cycles, it is now possible on an economic basis to provide complementary pumped storage facilities. For example, development of the Chapelcross nuclear power station site could achieve a rational development by linking tidal output with pumped storage facilities within the Solway area on a low head basis. The multiple use of equipment reduces construction costs, makes additional transmission lines unnecessary and removes the pressure for special inland reservoirs. When one thinks of the difficulties of planning permission that is not a small point.

    Unlike a conventional power station, such a combination would produce a steady output throughout the day, regardless of the state of the tide, and calculations show that if 4,000 megawatts of nuclear power were used to drive pumps throughout six and a half hours of low electricity demand at night that station would be able to produce a full 4,000 megawatts for the 12-hour daily demand. Therefore, the question of base load can be looked at as a practical proposition.

    I come now to my two questions. First, can Lord Rothschild’s Think Tank be asked to weigh up the advantages as between a channel tunnel and a major barrage scheme on the Solway or the Severn, given that a barrage scheme of this kind might cost plus or minus £1,000 million? That is a legitimate question for the Think Tank.

    Secondly, are the Government prepared to talk about tidal energy at an international level? I realise that any proposal likely to slow down the rate of spin of the earth deserves more consideration than in an Adjournment debate in the British House of Commons, but the serious question is whether there would be a problem of earth spin if several countries embarked upon tidal energy schemes. Would there be any adverse effects on the ocean bed? Do such fears apply at all if there is a two-basin estuary scheme? A great deal more could be said about it. I am limited in time, but I want to show that those who put forward such schemes are aware of the anxieties felt on this score. It would be silly not to express a certain sensitivity towards them.

    We are saying, in shorthand, that proposals which in September 1964 or September 1973 would have seemed way out and uneconomic must now come within the orbit of serious consideration.

    The argument tonight is not that this country should go hell-bent on tidal energy as some kind of a fad or panacea ; it is rather to extract information and to get the Government to assure the House that the case for tidal energy is not being allowed to go by default.

    We warn the Minister in his new Department that he will be plagued by many questions on tidal energy as long as he stays in the Ministry of Energy or until he persuades us that we have no case.

  • Edward Heath – 1974 Speech on Fuel Crisis

    Below is the text of the speech made by Edward Heath, the then Prime Minister, in the House of Commons, on 9 January 1974.

    I want at the outset of this debate to restate the hard facts which made the Government take the steps they announced in the House on 13th December. The underlying position has not materially altered since those measures were debated in the House on 18th December. The facts were not challenged then, nor were they refuted at the meeting of the National Economic Development Council which followed, at which I took the chair.

    Now the facts are accepted by the vast majority of responsible opinion in this country. The only difference is between those who believe that the action we took was wise and those who consider that we should have allowed our stocks to be used up, with the risk of industry grinding to a halt and essential services being damaged.

    The measures we took, including the three-day week, were forced on us by the need to make sure that our electricity supplies did not break down within a few weeks. This was a direct result of a fall in coal production, now down by almost 30 per cent., resulting from the miners’ industrial action begun on 12th November. I remind the House that it was only after five weeks of such action, when we could clearly see the consequences for the nation as a whole, that I made my statement to the House.

    In the five weeks following the miners’ action, power stations’ coal stocks fell by 3.6 million tons. This compared with a fall of 500,000 tons in the corresponding period last year. At 8th December the stocks stood at 16.2 million tons. A continued rundown of stocks of nearly 1 million tons a week would have reduced this total to the critical level of about 7 million tons by early February. That was on the optimistic assumption that the weather remained mild. It also presupposed that the industrial action in the mines or on the railways was not intensified. We had arranged for increased oil supplies to be sent to the power stations, and at 1st January the Central Electricity Generating Board had enough oil for three weeks’ use at all its oil-burning stations.

    The Government were not prepared to see a rundown in coal stocks such as I have described. The alternative was just to let the situation continue as we did in 1972, at the time of the miners’ strike. The Government were bitterly criticised at that time for so doing ; criticised by industry, criticised by the unions and criticised by the public, and, looking back, I should have to admit rightly so. But we have learned from that experience. In those circumstances, it was our duty to ensure as a matter of common prudence that the situation in 1972 was not repeated. In my belief, and, I hope, that of the House, no responsible Government could have done otherwise.

    As a result of the measures that we have taken, the saving in electricity consumption has reached about 21 per cent. I should like to pay tribute to the public and thank them for their co-operation. The contribution which they have made by their economies is of major importance. Both employers and the trade unions have also striven to adapt themselves to the limited electricity supplies available. They have striven with skill and ingenuity, and the nation owes them—both employers and trade unions—a great debt for so doing, and I hope the House will join me in asking for their continued co-operation.

    To ensure that we can together see the winter through without further major dislocation we need to consolidate that achievement and, indeed, to do rather better. The Government will continue to try to find ways of securing economies in the use of electricity and thus of giving more help to industry. In this we are assisted by the settlement within stage 3 made by the power workers on 5th January.

    Since the electricity restrictions took effect we have saved about 1½ million tons of coal. In the week before Christmas, power station coal stocks fell by less than 500,000 tons compared with 1 million tons in the first week of December. Over the Christmas period, the stock rundown was 750,000 tons when the loss was expected to be 1¼ million tons. As I have already told the House, and as I explained to the NEDC and have said repeatedly in public, the three-day week can be ended as soon as the miners decide to return to normal working and adequate supplies of coal are reaching the power stations.

    There is one other matter with which I should like to deal. [Interruption.] With respect, part of the agreement between the National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers is that safety maintenance should be done by extra shifts. That is not occurring, and that is one of the main reasons for the fall in coal production.

    Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

    The right hon. Gentleman does not know the agreement.

    The Prime Minister

    I have it here, and I am prepared to read it to the House. Clause 3 of the 1947 five-day week agreement states: The union will enter into arrangements with the board to provide for the regular working of additional shifts by certain categories of workers where this is necessary to ensure the safety of the pit.

    Mr. Skinner rose——

    The Prime Minister

    There is nothing controversial about this. This is a matter of fact and it is what justifies my statement that when the miners return to normal working it will be possible to get proper production and the coal will get through to the power stations.

    Mr. Michael McGuire (Ince)

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    The Prime Minister

    I am sorry, no.

    I listened to Mr. Gormley at the weekend, and there is one matter with which I should like to deal because there seems to be a genuine misunderstanding.

    Mr. McGuire rose——

    The Prime Minister

    I am sorry, but I shall not give way.

    Mr. Gormley said: If the members of the National Union of mineworkers went back to normal working tomorrow, you would still have this crisis. If it had not happened this month, it would have been in the next two or three months inevitably. If there is genuine misunderstanding here, I wish to remove it. The three-day week is in the use of electricity, and that is the consequence of the fall in supplies of coal to the power stations.

    There is now another factor of the utmost importance for British industry: the reduction in steel production. It is not the three-day week that has caused the British Steel Corporation to cut back production to 50 per cent. It is the lack of essential coking coal for the mills. The facts are that normal deliveries of coking coal to the blast furnaces have been cut to two-thirds of what is required. The corporation’s margins of coal are now down to 3.7 weeks’ supply at full production. That in itself, irrespective of Government action, will involve major shortages of material in manufacturing industry, with consequent short-time working and unemployment.

    The three-day week is not the consequence of the oil supply situation. The measures that we took in November would have been adequate to ensure the minimum of damage to industrial production from reductions in our oil supplies. We were assured at the time that industry could absorb those cuts by economies, and this has proved to be the case.

    The three-day week is not the result of higher oil prices. Indeed, it is essential that we meet this further external challenge by increasing production and exports to pay for the fuel that we require until our own resources are sufficiently developed to meet those needs.

    We also have to make adequate arrangements to safeguard our supplies of imported oil. That is the object of the negotiations now under way with Iran and of our contacts with other oil-producing States which the Government have rightly taken on in the interests of Britain. We wish to co-operate with both the oil-producing and oil-consuming nations in making these arrangements, about both the supply and the price of oil. It is obviously in the interests of all that there should not be an unrestrained international scramble for the supplies that are available.

    A number of proposals for international co-operation have already been made. It is right that there should be early talks between the major consuming countries, and that these talks should be broadened to include the producing countries. We have ourselves put some ideas to the American administration on how to follow up the initiative that Dr. Kissinger took in London at the Pilgrims Dinner, which I welcomed in the House and at Copenhagen and which I have welcomed on several other occasions. Meanwhile, I understand that an announcement will be made very shortly by the American Government about new proposals for a meeting in this connection. As soon as these proposals are received—which, I repeat, I understand will be in the very near future—we shall at once consult our Community partners about the response to them.

    The recent developments in the supply and, above all, the price of oil have completely transformed not only the degree but the very nature of the energy problem that faces us and, indeed, most Western industrial countries in the coming years. They have clearly added to the amount of time and effort that needs to be devoted to the subject of energy both at ministerial and at official level. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and my right hon. Friend the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury have been handling these matters with coolness and skill, but inevitably they and their officials have had less time for the other major tasks facing the Department of Trade and Industry.

    I recall that when I created the Department of Trade and Industry a few months after the present administration took office it was welcomed by the Leader of the Opposition, who had indeed said that similar thoughts had been in his own mind about this and the other major Departments. I believe that at the time it was right, in the circumstances of the energy supply situation, that the Department of Trade and Industry should have been created.

    But the creation now of the new Department of Energy will enable the Secretary of State for Energy and his colleagues to concentrate on the development of the coal industry, on nuclear power and on our offshore oil and gas resources at home, as well as on those tasks of working together with other oil-consuming countries and with the oil-producing countries on the international aspects of the energy problem. It will also make it possible for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and his colleagues to concentrate more of their attention upon the implications of energy developments for British industry and on the other major tasks facing the Department, in our overseas trade negotiations, export promotion, industrial development and regional policy, prices, and the considerable burden of legislation on consumer credit and company law reform now before Parliament.

    I return to the question of the three-day week and the crisis mentioned by Mr. Gormley, because the three-day week cannot be attributed to the balance of payments position. That demands, as I think everyone would agree, a full working week, maximum production and a continuation of the steady rise in productivity and of the rapid increase in exports over the last year. The three-day week cannot be laid at the door of an economic strategy for growth, which has brought substantial benefits to the people of this country in terms of a real improvement in personal standards of living.

    Mr. Russell Kerr (Feltham)

    There has been no improvement.

    The Prime Minister

    Then the hon. Gentleman is in complete disagreement with all the leaders of the TUC who have been taking part in the discussions we have had and who have constantly pressed for and supported a policy of expansion.

    The measures we have taken were forced on us by the facts of coal production that I have described. No one—and this was made abundantly plain in the NEDC meeting—the Government, the TUC or the CBI, can possibly welcome the circumstances which bring about a three-day week. We have not got it by choice ; we have got it out of necessity. The Government have not deliberately precipitated the crisis. We have always been willing, indeed anxious, to consult and to take account wherever possible of the views of both sides of industry.

    Mr. Kerr

    Why did not the Government consult the TUC?

    The Prime Minister

    I am quite prepared to deal with that question. As I explained to the NEDC, on the question of the introduction of the three-day week—which is the responsibility of the Government and which they fully accept—there was deliberately no discussion with the TUC members who saw my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment the night before it was announced, because the Government did not wish to lay themselves open to accusations from any quarter that they had discussed the matter with the TUC before the meeting of the NUM at which there was to be a further attempt by Mr. Gormley—he having made it first after my meeting—to persuade the members of his executive to go to the ballot. We were not prepared to have the accusation made that we were discussing the three-day week with the TUC before the immediate meeting of the NUM.

    I wish to deal with the record of the Government in consultation and in what have been the results of that consultation. [Interruption.] I understand, from the Press at any rate, that the nation is expecting the House to discuss this grave situation in a serious way. I certainly, as Prime Minister, propose to do so.

    Mr. Skinner

    When?

    The Prime Minister

    I turn now to the question of the record of consultation by the Government because of the accusation which is frequently made—I do not wish to enter into personalities, but it is frequently made—that the Government are seeking confrontation. Far from adopting a policy of confrontation, we have now conducted for more than 18 months the longest, the most detailed and the most far-reaching set of talks in the history of relations between the TUC, the CBI and any Government. Indeed, there has been some criticism in the House of the fact that the Government have taken part in these talks and have engaged in consultation of the fullest kind about the management of the national economy.

    Over the last 18 months we have had several objectives in these talks. We wanted to establish once and for all a reasonable basis for discussing common problems. I pledged myself to the nation to do this after the miners’ strike of 1972. It was then welcomed by the TUC and by the employers. We wanted to create a reasonable framework within which wage settlements could be negotiated. We wanted to develop the means whereby the Government, the TUC and the CBI together might review the working of our economy and our progress and discuss what further was necessary to achieve our objectives. Above all, we wanted to get away from the bludgeons of economic power and the blunt weapon of confrontation.

    Mr. Kerr

    After the Industrial Relations Act?

    The Prime Minister

    The overriding objective, recognised by all three parties to the talks, was to move away from the blind and indiscriminate use of economic power and to establish a system of wage settlements based on reason. That was the spirit in which we as a Government embarked on the discussions. During the summer and autumn of 1972, we held 11 meetings on a tripartite basis with the TUC and the CBI.

    That was the spirit in which we continued the discussions in January and February last year about stage 2 and throughout the summer and autumn before the introduction of stage 3. I presided over more than 33 hours of talks with those concerned. During these talks there was never any suggestion of confrontation from any party to the talks. No one desired that. We were all concerned to maintain the expansion of the economy. The TUC and the CBI recognised that a price for this would have to be paid in the balance of payments, but both fully accepted it and for this reason welcomed the floating of the pound. We were all determined to do everything possible to ensure that our exports had every opportunity of increasing so that our standard of living could rise and so that we could improve the position of the lower paid, the pensioners and others who most needed help.

    Those were our agreed objectives then and they remain our agreed objectives today. They are the objectives of the Government. We all recognised that we could not achieve all the improvements we wanted at once but that we could make progress by agreement in an orderly way and reach our objectives more quickly by so doing.

    We did not achieve all that we had hoped in 1972. In the absence of voluntary agreement we were forced to take statutory powers. Nor, in the discussions in 1973, were we able to move forward from a statutory policy to an agreed voluntary basis for dealing with prices and incomes. But in these last 18 months a great deal has been achieved and we have deliberately carried through measures to meet as many as possible of the policies on which agreement was reached between the TUC, the CBI and the Government.

    In fairness to all three parties to the talks, these achievements, I believe, need restating. By October last year we were making substantial progress towards the achievement of our joint objectives. The economy was expanding. Unemployment was down to under 500,000 and was still falling. Manufacturing output was up by 8 per cent. on a year before, and industrial production was up by almost 7 per cent.

    In the export markets, we could sell our products more competitively than any of our neighbours. In the first half of 1973, the growth in volume of our exports was 24 per cent. at an annual rate, compared with a world growth of 17 per cent. to 19 per cent. In the same period the growth in volume of our imports was 18 per cent. at an annual rate, as compared with 24 per cent. of the growth of volume of our exports.

    We were beginning to achieve the necessary rate of investment—

    Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West) rose—

    The Prime Minister

    I should say to the hon. Gentleman that, in fairness to all those who have done the work in industry, these figures should be stated. Surveys showed that 1974 would be the highest growth year for investment for more than a decade. Personal standards of living had grown by nearly 6 per cent. in 1972—faster than in any of the previous 20 years. The improvement in the first half of 1973 over the second half of 1972 was 3¼ per cent.
    We were also agreed that an essential part of the strategy should be to provide for the lower paid, particularly the pensioners, and again we have acted positively in this.

    Mr. Kerr

    Dishonest government.

    The Prime Minister

    We have paid particular attention, as the TUC urged, to the problems of the lower paid. Under stage 2 the wages limit of £1 plus 4 per cent. and the provisions for equal pay, longer holidays and shorter hours were all particularly designed to assist the lower paid.

    We continued all this in stage 3. In addition we provided for negotiators the alternative pay limit of £2.25 to help the lower paid. For the pensioners we have provided a secure future by ensuring that pensions should be uprated annually. Our record in this is second to none. Pensions have risen by 55 per cent. since 1970, which is far more than the increase in prices over the same period, and this does not include the £10 bonus which the pensioners have received for the last two Christmases.

    Mr. Meacher rose——

    The Prime Minister

    I am giving the House these details again because it is essential that the House and the country should recognise the background to the negotiations now taking place under stage 3 of the code approved by Parliament. It is absolutely basic to the present industrial situation.

    At the same time, all of us—the Government, the TUC and the CBI—recognised throughout our discussions that the reduction of inflation was a prime objective. I repeat that all of us would have preferred to find a way of achieving this voluntarily, but we should in no way underestimate the success of stages 1 and 2 of the incomes policy, for which I have paid tribute to both employers and unions.

    Most of us—[Interruption.] I understand that the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) does not like hearing the facts of life. This is a grave situation—

    Mr. Michael English (Nottingham, West) rose—

    The Prime Minister

    This is a grave situation—

    Mr. English

    Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? [Interruption.]

    Mr. Speaker

    Order. The right hon. Gentleman obviously is not giving way.

    The Prime Minister

    —a grave situation, in which the nation—[Interruption.]

    Mr. English rose—

    The Prime Minister

    I think that the nation will note the behaviour of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues.

    A prime objective of these talks has throughout been to combat inflation. I repeat that no one should underestimate the success, with the co-operation of employers and unions, of stages 1 and 2. Most of us would have settled for a price inflation of 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. a year, and that is what we would have had, thanks to the vast growth of the economy and the restraint of employers and unions, but for the rapid and massive rise in world prices of foodstuffs and raw materials. [HON. MEMBERS: “Ah.”] Again, hon. Members are sceptical. Let me give them the figures, from the Economist. The world prices of commodities have risen by no less than 119 per cent. and the world price of food by 113 per cent. Against that background, I should have thought that both employers and unions can count it a substantial achievement to hold the increase in domestic prices to under 10 per cent

    The effect of our counter-inflationary policy has been to ensure that we have been able to hold down domestic costs better than most other industrial countries. We have averted the danger of piling a substantial domestic inflation on top of inflation produced by world prices.

    Perhaps I may quote the new General Secretary of the TUC. He has emphasised that In the long term, it is still true that the solution to our problems lies in economic growth, it lies in continuing expansion and it lies in continuing investment. That is still the Government’s view, and it makes it absolutely imperative that this country should continue the battle against wage-cost inflation.

    Indeed, the large increase in prices that we shall have to pay for oil makes it more important to continue with expansion and not less important—

    Mr. Skinner

    Your own party does not believe you.

    The Prime Minister

    But, of course, the fruits of this expansion will have to go in a greater degree to pay for the cost of that oil instead of going to improve our standard of living. Those are the hard facts of the present situation.

    In the present circumstances, therefore, I believe that, far from being accused of confrontation, the Government are entitled to ask for a positive response from the trade union movement as a whole for what we have achieved in reply to the points which they, with employers, have put to us. They have benefited from a policy of growth which they demanded and which they fully supported. They have benefited from a policy which brought unemployment below 500,000, which filled order books, which provided a high level of production, improved standards of living and brought over the last year a substantial measure of industrial peace.

    In stage 3 itself, the Government have gone as far as possible to meet the points put to us in our discussions with the TUC and the CBI. They asked for a greater flexibility for negotiators. How often we hear at this moment that there must be flexibility. Well, let those who ask for that consider the immense amount of flexibility in the stage 3 negotiations which has been used, rightly used, taken advantage of fully and accepted, by so many negotiators who have already completed their negotiations.

    Flexibility has been built into the code—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but in this serious situation, Labour Members will not shout me down, however much they may wish to do so. The flexibility has been introduced into the code in the 1 per cent. flexibility margin, in the provision for hours and holidays and, in particular, in the provision for unsocial hours and in the choice of pay limits. The TUC and the employers asked for the opportunity to negotiate efficiency agreements. These opportunities are included in the code and are being used.

    I do not intend to speak in detail of the miners’ pay claim. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment is discussing it with the NUM executive this afternoon and he will be taking part in the debate tomorrow. There are certain things in general about it which I wish to say. All the provisions of stage 3 are available to the miners for negotiation. The offer to the miners includes payment for unsocial hours. I am told that there are different arrangements about shifts in mining from manufacturing industry. [Interruption.]

    Hon. Gentlemen are sceptical. It was Mr. Jack Jones who raised the matter in the National Economic Development Council. Of course, the miners have been offered an arrangement specifically to deal with the night shifts. If they so wish they can negotiate on these matters. What cannot be done is to deal with all the problems at once on a scale far greater than that already dealt with within the code.

    In addition to the basic rate there is the flexibility allowance which the miners have chosen to use to extend their holiday arrangements. That is entirely up to them and is a perfectly fair arrangement for them to ask for. There are special arrangements for unsocial hours which they have opted to use for the night shift. There are bigger lump sums on retirement. All of these are part of the flexibility arrangements, in addition to the basic rate, which have been offered to the miners in the negotiations.

    It can be summed up in this way. The offer made to the NUM represents the best offer made to its members in the whole history of negotiations. Even without a 3½ per cent. efficiency increase the offer would give 25 per cent. of miners £6.30p extra a week, 50 per cent. of miners more than £4.75p a week and 75 per cent. of miners more than £3.30p a week. This offer means that average earnings for some underground craftsmen would rise to £55 a week, for some power loaders to £51 a week and for surface men, grade 2, to about £39 a week. All this is before account is taken of the efficiency deal which is available for negotiation between the union and the National Coal Board.

    When I saw the NUM on 28th November I discussed all of these details with it. I said to it, and I emphasise this, that if it accepted a stage 3 settlement and resumed normal production the Government would be ready immediately thereafter to consider with both sides of the industry the miners’ pay arrangements in the context of the longer-term future for the industry.

    Mr. Skinner rose—

    The Prime Minister

    Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman were to listen to the offer which has been made.

    Mr. Skinner

    Why will not the right hon. Gentleman give way?

    The Prime Minister

    If the hon. Gentleman listened to what I have to say, I might be more willing to give way.

    As this point has recently been raised in the Press by responsible commentators it is right that they should have the answer to it. The Secretary of State for Employment repeated this to the leaders of the NUM on 20th December and will repeat it to the full executive of the NUM today.

    There are some, including the Leader of the Opposition, who say that we should breach stage 3 and give the miners a better offer. For the Government to do that would be to break faith with millions of workers who have already settled under stage 3. I should like to give the House some figures. By the end of 1973 well over 550 settlements covering 4 million workers had been notified to the Pay Board. This includes over 1 million local authority manual workers, 250,000 National Health Service ancillary workers, over 300,000 agricultural workers and another 500,000 workers covered by various wages councils.

    It also includes more than 1½ million workers who have taken advantage of the provisions in stage 3 to help the lower paid. Up to the end of December no major group of workers had failed to reach a settlement within stage 3 by the due date. That is an acceptance of stage 3 by nearly 4 million workers in nearly 550 settlements. I suggest that there is no evidence there of 4 million workers considering this as a confrontation with the Government.

    The offer made to the miners within stage 3 gives an average increase of between 13 per cent. and 16 per cent., with the additional efficiency payments. The average size of the settlements agreed in stage 3, of which I have given details, is considerably lower than the 13 per cent. offered to the miners, which excludes the offer of the efficiency agreement of 3½ per cent.

    While these agreements in stage 3 were being made we have been able, as a result of the Pay Board report on anomalies, to sort out a large number of anomalies and reach agreement. These were anomalies which arose as a result of stages 1 and 2. I would have thought that the House would accept that to sort out those anomalies by agreement with the unions and to have 550 settlements covering 4 million workers under stage 3 is no mean achievement and is due to the work of employers and unions within the framework of the code approved by Parliament.

    Mrs. Barbara Castle (Blackburn)

    If the Pay Board report on relativities, which I understand is due out shortly, makes out a case for special cases to receive special payment, are the Government prepared to amend the pay code immediately?

    The Prime Minister

    That is a perfectly fair question for the right hon. Lady to raise and I hope that she will give the Government credit for having asked the Pay Board not only to deal with anomalies within stages 1 and 2 but also to deal with the much deeper question of relativities in industry. We have given an undertaking that immediately the report is published we will consult with the TUC and the CBI to take action upon it. We cannot give a clearer or firmer undertaking than that. We immediately entered into discussions with the CBI and TUC about the anomalies report and will do the same about the report on relativities when it reaches us from the Pay Board. We asked for it to come to us by 31st December. It is no fault of the Government’s that it has not reached us. On the other hand, we recognise the complexities of this matter and the details which the Pay Board has to consider in all the representations which have been made to it.

    I suggest, therefore, that far from this being a confrontation between the Government and the unions, exactly the reverse is the case—that we have sought their assistance in consultation and that, under stage 3, 4 million workers have reached a settlement and many of the anomalies have now been dealt with and peacefully settled.

    I believe, therefore, that we should keep faith with those who have accepted the code approved by Parliament and who, therefore, expected that the Government would ensure that the remaining settlements under stage 3 were fully in accordance with it. That, I believe, is an honourable position for the Government to take up.

    Mr. Stanley Orme (Salford, West)

    Does the Prime Minister say, therefore, that the TUC is in favour of stage 3? Is he not aware—he has been told by the TUC—that the TUC is completely opposed to it and that many of the trade unions that have made agreements have been forced to do so by the Government’s policies? While the Prime Minister is talking about stage 3, will he say whether the Glasgow firemen’s settlement comes within its terms?

    The Prime Minister

    On the last part of the hon. Gentleman’s question, as he knows that is being considered by the Pay Board, in the way in which the other 550 settlements have been considered. I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Government have been able to force anyone to reach a decision in this matter ; far from it. These are voluntarily negotiated agreements. [Interruption.] Let me deal with the hon. Gentleman’s first point. I have never disguised for one moment that both employers and trade unionists would prefer to have voluntary collective bargaining, provided that they could be assured that there would not be inflationary leapfrogging, and in none of these discussions has any way been shown how that can be avoided. It was, therefore, the responsibility of the Government to carry through stage 3.

    Therefore, the objectives have not changed. We all want to reduce the rate of increase in prices which comes from wage costs, and that is the objective of stage 3. We all want, once the immediate emergency is behind us, to resume the expansion of the economy which we were able to achieve in 1973. We shall do our utmost as a Government to ensure that supplies of oil do not hinder us in this objective.

    These objectives are agreed between employers, unions and the Government. The life of every man, woman, and child in this country will be better if we can realise those objectives. I say again to the House and to the country ; does not the best hope of doing so lie in our sitting down together, as we have done over the past 18 months, to talk to each other about these objectives—the Government, the CBI and the TUC?

    Mr. Kerr

    Repeal the Industrial Relations Act.

    The Prime Minister

    I have repeatedly made plain to those who have taken part in talks with us that we shall fully consider any proposals for amendments to the Industrial Relations Act. I repeat that no proposals have been made to us at these talks, by either the employers or the unions.

    I strongly believe—I repeat it—that it is only through reason, through reasoned argument and reasoned agreement, that, as a nation, we can progress. This does not mean that trade unions and other groups in our society are asked to neglect their own interests ; far from it. Again, in these talks all have always realised that. It does mean that they are asked to take the longer-term view of their own interests—

    Mr. Skinner

    Jam tomorrow.

    The Prime Minister

    —to consider their interests in the context of the needs and the interests of the rest of the community.

    If we try to achieve sectional interests by fighting each other we fail in our sectional objectives and we end by destroying this country. Surely we should follow the alternative course—a course of reason and, indeed, of moderation.

    We should be trying to marry our sectional objectives in policies and programmes which serve the interests of the community as a whole. That was the spirit in which the Government embarked upon the tripartite talks in 1972. My colleagues and I are ready at any time to resume discussions with the CBI and the TUC, together or separately, in that same spirit ; not to try to score debating points, not to exchange recriminations about the past—for we have, none of us, done any of this in the tripartite and bipartite talks that we have had so far—but to try together to work out a programme which may not immediately meet all the desires of any of us but which will provide a framework within which we can meet our agreed objectives for the country and make orderly progress with our separate aspirations, progress which is not at the expense of other people but which takes account of the needs and aspirations of the ordinary people of this country—consumers, housewives and pensioners—to go about their lives in order and stability.

    There is to be a special congress of trade union leaders next week. I invite them at their meeting to take up this offer which I am making today here in Parliament, to come together with the Government and the representatives of management, not in a spirit of confrontation and suspicion—[Interruption.] I am sorry that Opposition Members should reveal their complete ignorance of the attitude of the trade union leaders who attended the No. 10 talks and the Chequers talks.

    I invite the trade union leaders now to come together with the Government and the representatives of management, not in a spirit of confrontation and suspicion, but in a spirit of constructiveness, of moderation and of reason. It is not too late for reason to prevail. It is not too late to discuss and settle all these matters within the framework which Parliament has approved. It is not too late to look to the future and to plot our course together. Indeed, it is in the interests of the whole nation that we should do so, and do so as rapidly as possible.

  • Robert Carr – 1974 Statement of a State of Emergency

    Below is the text of the statement made by Robert Carr, the then Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 9 January 1974.

    With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.
    Under the provisions of the Emergency Powers Act 1920 the proclamation made on 12th December will expire at midnight on Friday 11th January, together with the regulations made in pursuance of that Proclamation. Since there has been no resolution of the disputes affecting the coal mines and the railways and since there is continuing uncertainty over oil supplies, the Government consider that it is necessary for the state of emergency to be continued.

    Although the existing regulations will not expire until midnight on Friday 11th January, in view of the recall of Parliament this week it seemed right and for the convenience of the House that there should be no uncertainty as to whether or not the state of emergency would be extended. A further Proclamation and emergency regulations have therefore been made. The regulations—to be known as the Emergency Regulations 1974—will be laid later this afternoon and copies will be available in the Vote Office. They will come into force at midnight on Friday.

    In accordance with the undertakings which I gave to the House last December, two major changes have been made in the new regulations. The provisions of the old Regulations 21 and 22 relating to fuel, refinery products, electricity and gas have been omitted, because there are now sufficient powers under the Fuel and Electricity (Control) Act 1973. The second change is to the sabotage regulation ; Regulation 30 of the new regulations has been redrafted to meet the point raised in the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and also in the debate on the last set of regulations concerning the lawful nature of industrial action falling short of a strike.

    There is a minor change in Regulation 17(2) which is extended to cover the consumption of electricity elsewhere than on the premises of the consumer.

  • Paul Tyler – 1974 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made in the House of Commons by Paul Tyler, the then Liberal MP for Bodmin, on 12 March 1974.

    I am grateful and honoured to have been successful in catching your eye, Mr. Speaker.

    I hope that the House will not think it excessively precocious of me to leap in so early in a parliamentary career. I have two motives. One is that I suspect that this Parliament may not last all that long, so I want to take advantage of my presence here as quickly as possible. More seriously, there seems to be no opportunity later in the debate on the Gracious Speech to discuss housing, so I was compelled to try to catch your eye today.

    My predecessor as Member for Bodmin was a devoted and diligent constituency Member. We admired him for that and were grateful to him for the hard work he put in on behalf of the division. He will be missed, I fear, from the House for an additional reason: I understand that he had the best batting average of any hon. Member. I must confess that cricket is not my game and that even if the House manages to stay together until the cricket season, I shall not be performing in that way.

    The constituency that I have the honour and privilege to represent may be known to many right hon. and hon. Members. I hope that it is known to you, Mr. Speaker. I know that it is an old parliamentary game to try to lure the Prime Minister into one’s constituency, but I should be much more glad to lure you into mine. The Prime Minister, I understand, frequently travels through my constituency at speed by railway. I would far rather have your presence, Mr. Speaker, so that I could demonstrate to you that it is the most beautiful constituency in the United Kingdom.

    More than that—it is at the moment a comparatively prosperous part of Cornwall. I say “comparatively” because the Duchy of Cornwall has not found it easy to keep pace with the rising cost of living in the rest of the country and we have consistently lagged behind in terms of incomes under successive Governments in the last 25 to 30 years. However, for a short time there was a more positive approach to the problems of low income areas and my constituency was fortunate enough to obtain new industry, particularly light engineering. As a result, small market towns have been enabled to expand.

    Unfortunately, in the last three-and-a-half to four years, this expansion has slowed up—not just because of a lack of interest among potential industrialists, but because of the housing situation. On this subject, I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Robertson). The housing shortage is now a major social evil again. Perhaps for the first time, it is not just the central urban areas that are feeling the effect of the housing crisis. Certainly a rural area with comparatively small towns, such as South-East Cornwall, feels this now excessively, so much so that it is having a major impact on our whole economy.

    Although five or six years ago, young people often had to leave the area because of lack of jobs, the reason now all too often is the complete lack of any suitable accommodation. Any hon. Member representing a large constituency must receive in his postbag details of many sad, unfortunate housing problems. On reaching this place, I certainly found myself engulfed in such a postbag. I know that the previous Member did a great deal of valuable work, but I suspect that my postbag is that much greater as a result of what has happened in comparatively recent months.

    The sad fact is that the national and the local housing programmes have collapsed. The former Minister for Housing and Construction announced at the end of January that the figures for completions in the private sector had fallen to 186,100 and in the public sector to 107,500—decreases of 10,200 and 15,400 respectively, giving a total of 293,600 in 1973 compared with 319,100 in 1972. These are alarming figures.

    The Natonal House-Building Council has already announced that in the first month of this year there has been a further drop in the private sector of 40 per cent. compared with the previous year. Judging from our own local experience, we in South-East Cornwall are experiencing this situation with the same gravity as that with which we meet all major economic, social and housing problems in the country. When the country gets a cold, we in Cornwall, I fear, seem to catch double pneumonia.

    In the West Country in 1973 council housing completions were down by some 75 per cent. on the preceding 12 months. In East Cornwall the council house building programme is almost at a standstill. Very few family houses are being built. Only a handful of old peoples’ dwellings are being built. At the same time, the private sector is finding that it has no purchasers for the houses that it completes.

    There are two or three immediate steps which the new Government could take. I think that I have my right hon. and hon. Friends with me in suggesting that this is something which the new Government should look at as a matter of urgency. First, it is now possible to give more responsibility to the local housing authority. Some of us had grave misgivings about the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, but its one merit was that in giving additional size and status to the new district councils, the new housing authorities, it should have been possible to trust them a little more. The first way in which I would seek to trust them a little more, to decide what their local needs are and then to meet them, would be to abolish the housing cost yardsticks.

    As the House will remember, the housing cost yardsticks were introduced by a previous Labour Government in 1967. They tie down the local housing authority to an immense degree and to minute detail. They have all sorts of unfortunate side effects. Much of the condensation problem in recent council house building has been caused by the fact that the housing cost yardsticks provide for only partial home heating. The result has been that in the long term a great deal of remedial work has had to be undertaken, costing thousands or millions of pounds. The first step would be to abolish the housing cost yardsticks and to lay the responsibility fairly and squarely on the housing authority to undertake the sort of building that it needs for its own purposes.

    Secondly, on the mortgages situation the Gracious Speech contains a splendid non sequitur. It states that Urgent measures will be taken to reverse the fall in house-building”. and goes on to elaborate other policies which are totally unrelated to that objective. Certainly at present the mortgage situation should be a cause for grave alarm on the Treasury Bench.

    The Liberal Party has promoted for some years the idea of low-start mortgages. It is nothing new. Many hon. Members in all parts of the House now support that concept. But why is it that, when we have had an official report making it quite evident that it is possible to run such a scheme, it takes this country two or even three years to put it into operation? The National Economic Development Council produced a report at least two years ago, setting out in detail the financial implications of a low-start mortgage scheme, but it is still not fully operational.

    The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant), who has now left the Chamber, referred to the role of building societies. I believe that building societies are too cautious. The Government should be in a position to encourage them to be much more open-minded and much more liberal with their funds. At the same time, the building societies should be encouraged actually to build. In the Scandinavian countries and in West Germany the building societies build houses. That is a role which would do a great deal for the societies and for the whole question of the finance of housing in Britain.

    Thirdly, and very importantly, I believe that there should be immediate action to channel public funds to those most in need when it comes to buying a house. We must now wait for the Budget. It would be fair to say, however, that my right hon. and hon. Friends will be looking to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for some explicit statement or action to try to make sure that the tax allowances for house purchase go to those who are most in need of help.

    The time has certainly come when we must regard housing as one of our biggest social problems. From this problem derive so many of our social difficulties. At the same time, we must not forget that it is a question of quality as well as quantity. We must be building to last. We must not be building the slums of tomorrow. The cost yardstick, sadly, has done a great deal to produce substandard homes in the longer term.

    But the financial system which ensures that loans are raised for a period of 60 years, and then after that period we forget about the structure of the buildings, has also ensured that we have moved inevitably towards more and more throw-away building in the last 20 to 30 years. That process must now be reversed, because the energy crisis and the material crisis mean that a house or any building today must be built to last if we are to get good value from the public money which we invest in them. Buildings must be built to last at least 100 years, if not 150 years.

    We must hope that the new Government will look again at the subject of housing. I fear that the brief reference in the Gracious Speech does not encourage me to think that the Government will approach this subject with a freshness which will enable them to insist that the particular representatives of our community, who are responsible for planning the shelter of our citizens, should look at the subject in the interests of all future generations. It is not good enough to build just for here and now. We must be building for a generation after the next generation. If we are to do that, we certainly cannot continue with the present hand-to-mouth financial restrictions which prevent local housing authorities from doing a good job for their community.

    The time has come to trust the people and the representatives of the people. That must mean less Whitehall interference, rather than more.

  • Malcolm Rifkind – 1974 Maiden Speech in the House of Commons

    Below is the text of the maiden speech made in the House of Commons by Malcolm Rifkind, the then Conservative MP for Edinburgh, Pentlands, on 19 March 1974.

    It gives me great pleasure to participate in this debate, but as a new Member I feel that, both of necessity and through pleasure, I should make some observations on my constituency and on my predecessor. I have the pleasure of representing the Pentlands division of Edinburgh, a city that returns some seven Members to this Parliament, thus ensuring that all the deadly sins are well represented on both sides of the Chamber; I leave it to hon. Members to decide for themselves which should be attributed to whom.

    Pentlands is somewhat unusual for an urban constituency in that almost half its area consists of the impressive hills that give it its name. In addition, within the boundaries of the constituency there are three thriving villages, and at least one full-time shepherd, which ensures that the agricultural interest cannot be ignored. The bulk of the electorate, however, live in the gracious houses of Colinton and Merchiston, the new massive council estates of Wester Hailes, the older estates of Sighthill, and the new private housing estates of Bonaly, Buckstone and Baberton.

    My predecessor was a man whom the House held in high regard—a former Lord Advocate, Norman Wylie. He had the somewhat unusual distinction of having Front Bench responsibilities not only from the very day on which he entered this Chamber but as Solicitor-General for Scotland for some months before that. I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House will have been delighted to hear of his elevation to the Scottish Bench as a Senator of the College of Justice.

    I, too, am an advocate, and I am sure that the House will be glad that the quota of lawyers in this place has not been diminished by Norman Wylie’s departure. However, I can sympathise—if not agree—with those who, like Burke, believe that the country should be governed by law but not by lawyers.

    I am particularly delighted to be able to speak in a debate on foreign affairs. It has been one of the sadder features of recent election campaigns that our overriding infatuation with economic statistics and the cost of living has driven considerations of Britain’s international rôle into forgotten corners.

    Perhaps the only issue which came to the forefront in the election campaign was our relationship with the European Economic Community. It was sad that, for the bulk of the electorate, that was largely a matter of domestic significance, concerned only with the price of butter and eggs. We are in danger of becoming morbidly introspective and insular, forgetting that, while we do not have an imperial tradition to continue, we have a vital contribution to make towards the solution of international problems.

    I hope that I am not being unduly optimistic. I accept that we cannot look back on a world that has left us for ever. I know that we cannot emulate the naïve innocence of Canning, who, having sent British troops to Portugal in 1822, was able to remark that the British flag now flies from the heights above Lisbon, and where the British flag flies no foreign domination shall come.

    However, Britain—as, indeed, does France—has a strength which cannot be matched by the super-Powers. We share parliamentary, historical and linguistic links with the great majority of the nations of Africa and Asia. We are part of their history, and they are part of ours. More importantly, we are no longer a threat to their independence or to their security. At such a time as this, Britain and France have the potential to bridge the awful and depressing gulf between the rich nations and the poor nations, which happen also to be the white and the coloured nations. It is a terrible responsibility upon us, and it would be tragic if at such a time we were to retreat into being a small island off the western coast of Europe, concerned only with our domestic problems and whether we should sub-divide ourselves even further, like some schizophrenic amoeba.

    I wish to speak specifically about Southern Africa. I believe that Britain has a rôle, through both history and inclination, of vital importance to that area. I speak with a little knowledge, having spent almost two years working at the University of Rhodesia in Salisbury. That university was multi-racial in character, which is very unusual for that country. Indeed, it was its multi-racial character which caused some of the Rhodesian Front members to describe it affectionately as the “Kremlin on the Hill”.

    Despite that, Rhodesia is of considerable importance. It has, perhaps, been one of the more endearing features of the activities of this House that successive Governments have produced what can only be called a bi-partisan policy on the problem of Rhodesia. I, for one, welcome that fact. Few who have been to Rhodesia, whether to visit or to live there, cannot but be aware of the grave injustices that one finds in Rhodesian society. One cannot but be aware of the deep division in Rhodesian society between white and black, and of the great gulf that separates the two halves of the population.

    There is one aspect of the present Government’s policy towards Rhodesia which I cannot but regret. As I see it, there are two schools of thought in Southern Africa. There are those who, on the one hand, however optimistically, however naïvely, believe passionately in the possibility of a multi-racial society in that unhappy country. There are, however, on the other hand, those who, equally sincerely and perhaps equally passionately, believe that the only alternative to European domination is African domination. Adherants to the latter view can be found both in the Rhodesian Front and in the African Nationalist Parties.

    While I clearly and willingly accept that the Government in their policy support the former view that we must work towards a multi-racial society, there is one aspect of their approach which belittled that. We saw how, in the Queen’s Speech, it was stated that the Government would accept only a settlement that was supported not by the majority of the population but by the African majority.

    Likewise, the concept of NIBMR is often referred to as “no independence before” not “majority rule,” but “majority African rule.” That is not simply a matter of linguistic importance. It is of great importance, because it suggests that the Government of our country are moving towards a situation where they believe that the only alternative to European domination is African domination. Indeed, it confirms the belief of the Europeans in Rhodesia that Britain in general, and the Labour Party in particular, does not care for the interests of the European community in Rhodesia with regard to their long term future. It is terribly important that at every available opportunity we should make it abundantly clear that we believe that there is a long-term future for the European community in Rhodesia, albeit in a very different Rhodesia from that in which they are living today. But it is vital that we should put that point.

    There is one final matter concerning Southern Africa to which I should like to refer. Many arguments are made about the rights and wrongs, the pros and cons, of economic or diplomatic boycott. I should not wish to enter into those arguments at present, save only to say that the arguments have force on both sides. But there is one passionate plea that I would make, and that is to dissuade as far as I am able those who would argue for a cultural and academic boycott of Southern Africa. I do not, for one moment, doubt the sincerity of their motives, but I know from the people, both black and white, who are fighting against apartheid—not in Trafalgar Square, but in Southern Africa itself—that this sort of approach creates the greatest of anguish.

    There is little enough originality, creativity or progressive ideas in the Southern part of the African continent, and it would be singularly unfortunate were we to support those who suggest that what little originality, what little cultural creation there is in that part of the world should be stifled from it. I say instead that we should encourage all forms of cultural and academic contact with Southern Africa, not because it will turn the Europeans into the great believers in a multi-racial ideal—I am not sufficiently naive to believe that to be likely—but I believe that where there are whites and blacks in Southern Africa fighting for contacts with the finest parts of Western European civilisation we should maximise their opportunities and not minimise them.

    I have said what I wished to say. A former resident of my constituency—Robert Louis Stevenson—once remarked that politics is perhaps the only profession for which a training was not thought necessary. I thank the House for listening to me, and I hope that I have not confirmed that observation.

  • Walter Clegg – 1974 Speech on Fleetwood

    Below is the text of the speech made by Walter Clegg, the then Conservative MP for North Fylde, in the House of Commons on 1 April 1974.

    The last Parliament had one distinct advantage over the present Parliament, in that the hon. Member for North Fylde, being then a Government Whip, was unable to speak except to move the Adjournment of the House. Alas, those halcyon days are past.

    Other hon. Members left the Chamber swiftly as soon as I rose to make what is virtually a maiden speech after four years of silence. But I propose to bear in mind what I call Clegg’s Laws of Listening, which I formulated after sitting for many a weary hour on the Government Front Bench and keeping silent, as you have to do in your Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The first of those laws is that the second half of any speech appears to be twice as long as the first, and the second law is that the enjoyment of a speech is in inverse proportion to its length. I shall try my best to bear those two laws in mind when I speak.

    The problems I have chosen to raise in the debate affect the port and town of Fleetwood in my constituency. They are very much the problems of success and not of failure. Not many years ago many people said that the port of Fleetwood was finished and that Fleetwood as a town was on the way down. That is quite contrary to what has happened over the past few years. From about 1970 onwards the port and the town have flourished.

    The change started with the reinstatement of the Isle of Man steamer service for summer travellers to the Isle of Man from the port. Then we had the expansion of industry on the town’s estate, after the adoption of Fylde as an assisted area, and next we had remarkable development in the port itself.

    First, we had the new Jubilee Quay for the inshore fishermen, and in the space of one year alone the inshore fleet doubled. We have also embarked on the modernisation of the fish dock. Work on that has just about started, and it will mean a much better dock for the use of the fishing fleet in future.

    In addition, we have had a development of the dry cargo side of Fleetwood, which has been remarkable. I pay tribute to the British Transport Docks Board, and particularly to our local manager, who has played such a great part in the operation. From being a port that handled comparatively little dry cargo, we are now handling more and more through lift-off facilities. Roll-on, roll-off facilities are being made available. A Private Bill has come to Parliament from the board to provide even more facilities in the port. This is very good for the town and the port of Fleetwood. We have very good labour relations.

    I am pleased that the board has made an effort to develop our port, but it produces problems, as success often does. One problem is the flow of traffic to the port, which has to come through some winding country lanes from the present M6. When the Blackpool spur of the M6 is built, it will still have to come through country lanes. The part I am concerned with is a stretch between the end of Amounderness Way and the boundaries of Fleetwood.

    I have been given figures by the board of the flow of traffic along the stretch of road which goes through Thornton Cleveleys in my constituency, quite a heavily populated area. In 1973 the estimated number of road vehicle journeys—vehicles using the port, and not light traffic—was 61,630. This year that figure will increase to about 73,000. but I am told that in 1975—and this is a revised figure I received over the weekend—the estimated number of road vehicle journeys is about 200,000.

    All this is in addition to the normal traffic to the port, which includes holiday traffic going to Fleetwood itself and to Thornton Cleveleys—both holiday resorts —private motorists going to the Isle of Man steamer and other heavy vehicles which use the same route for the factories that ICI has in the area and for the power station. It is true that we have a railway system for freight which still goes to part of Fleetwood but it does not go into the port itself. It stops short at the power station and the ICI sidings. One can see little hope of relief in that respect.

    The impact upon Thornton Cleveleys already is quite intense. I want to quote what the local newspaper had to say about the stretch of the Fleetwood Road which is now used by these heavy vehicles. I travel along it frequently and it looks something like the Menin Road in the First World War—as though it had been shelled—because, in addition to all the problems of traffic, we have had the construction of a major sewerage scheme and a drainage scheme, and the road is upset.

    The Thornton Cleveleys Times of 22nd March had the headline: ‘It’s Murder’, says traffic sufferers and it went on: Walls and chimneys cracking, tins of food jumping off shop shelves, beds shaking and pictures moving on the walls were just a few complaints from up-in-arms residents this week complaining about heavy traffic using the Fleetwood Road, Thornton. One of my constituents said that it was almost like living in a house with a poltergeist, because everything was always on the move.

    There is also the problem of safety—of heavy vehicles using a narrow road lined for the most part on both sides with houses.

    The Minister is probably well aware of this problem because it has been put to the Ministry before. What is needed most of all to effect relief is the completion of the Thornton Cleveleys bypass, which would take traffic from the end of Amounderness Way and take it through Copse Road, Fleetwood. This would have an immediate effect if it were constructed as quickly as possible. I have been in touch with the Lancashire County Council—the road authority—and with the new Wyre District Council, which was inaugurated today, and to which I wish the best of good will. Both councils give very high priority to this project.

    I ask the Minister two specific questions: first, has there been any delay in letting the Lancashire County Council know the full material it needs for its transport policies and programmes, and, secondly, when will it be possible for the Department to let the county council know how much money it will have available?—because I understand that in this case these priorities are set more by the Lancashire County Council than by the Department itself.

    The key factor for the county council is: when will it know how much money is available so that it can allocate priority to this road? The needs for this road are incontestable. They are two-fold. First, there is the need to look after the safety of the people using the road at the moment and to look after the lives of the people living along the road, in the environmental sense, and, secondly, the need for new communications, especially with the new spur of the M6, which is essential if the port of Fleetwood is to develop, remain properous, and become more prosperous. I press the urgency of these items on the Minister and his Department. I urge them to do all they can to give us this relief road as soon as possible.

    I now turn to some other problems of the port which are not the direct responsibility of the hon. Member—I have informed him of these—but which he could well pass on particularly to his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

    The Fleetwood fishing fleet is under some difficulty in that it must be kept fully modernised. It is easy for ports that do not have modernised fishing fleets to fall by the wayside. For example, Milford Haven is now virtually finished as a fishing port. That leaves Fleetwood as the major deep-sea port on the west of the country, including Wales and Scotland.

    Fleetwood has a strong desire to keep its fishing fleet up to date. It has that desire for more than one reason. Deep-sea fishing is a highly dangerous, skilled and arduous job. If any job was referable as a special case involving hardship at work, the trawlermen’s job would surely come into that category. Fleetwood wants to send its men to sea in the best equipped ships that it is possible to have. I ask that consideration be given to reinstating the grant which was obtainable for the building of fishing vessels.

    At the same time I ask that consideration be given to the impact of oil fuel costs on the fishing industry. If it were possible to get back such costs from the market there would be little or no problem, but I doubt whether that is possible. I am not asking specifically for the refunding of such costs, but I ask that the matter be kept under surveillance. At one time there was an operational subsidy, but that is no longer in force. Fuel costs are having an impact on the fishing industry, and I ask that the matter be kept under review. Unless there is a proper return from the market or some sort of subsidy it is possible that fishing will become unprofitable. That would be a dangerous situation.

    Finally, I draw attention to the problem of fishing limits. Fleetwood vessels are still fishing around Iceland, but that fishing will come to an end. The Law of the Sea Conference at Caracas will take place this year, and many countries are saying that they are determined to obtain wider fishing limits. If that is so, the fishermen of Fleetwood will want their share of any new limits that the conference hands out. We must have fishing grounds to enable the fleet to live.

    The fishermen have suggested a limit of 200 miles. If other countries get wider limits, that is what Fleetwood will want. We shall have to bear in mind the points of view which are expressed at the conference, but if other countries leave the conference with wider limits there will be a tremendous reaction in this country right around the coast if similar limits are not granted to our fishermen.

    I have referred to some of the problems in the port and town of Fleetwood. Happily, they are problems which arise from success and not from failure.

  • Merlyn Rees – 1974 Statement on Belfast Bomb

    Below is the text of the statement made by Merlyn Rees, the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in the House of Commons on 1 April 1974.

    With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about events in Northern Ireland in the last few days. I do so in the full realisation of the weight of my responsibility to this House.

    On Thursday 28th March a bomb of between 500 and 600 lb. exploded outside a hotel in the centre of Belfast which is at present an Army headquarters. On the following day there were more bombs outside Catholic bars in Belfast, and on Saturday 30th March the level of violence was further stepped up, with bomb and incendiary attacks in Armagh, Lisburn and Bangor as well as more incidents in Belfast, and the violence continued on Sunday 31st March.

    In these four days six civilians were killed and 65 injured. The Army had eight casualties and the RUC two, fortunately not serious. The pattern of these incidents shows a succession of acts of retaliation and revenge between one community and another.

    On Friday morning I visited the city centre and in the afternoon had an urgent discussion on the security situation with the GOC and the chief constable. On Saturday I visited other areas of Belfast in company with the brigade commander, meeting some of his local commanders and troops responsible for security in the area. My hon. Friend the Minister of State had discussions in Belfast on Sunday morning with the GOC and the deputy chief constable. Later on Sunday afternoon, in company with local representatives, he visited Lisburn and Bangor. He reported to the Prime Minister and to me last night by telephone. After further consultation this morning, he returned to Northern Ireland.

    In the course of our visits, both my hon. Friend and myself have talked to many members of the public and are in no doubt about the strength of their feelings at these latest outrages. I am sure that the whole House will join me in condemning these senseless and vicious attacks which cause so much distress and damage and, I say again, will achieve nothing. I find it impossible to understand the motivation of those, from whichever side they come, who believe that political ends can be achieved by violence or who seek to destroy the Constitution Act and power sharing not by political action but by bombing and killing.

    It was a bad weekend, and it has led—and I fully understand this—to demands for increased action by the security forces. If violence on this scale occurred in cities in Great Britain hon. Members would rightly be demanding that all available resources should be thrown against those responsible. As hon. Members will know, I have since I came into office four weeks ago been reviewing with the GOC and the chief constable the security situation. I can already say quite clearly that no increase in the number of troops in Northern Ireland would eliminate the sorts of incident which happened last weekend. For example, I was told on Saturday in Belfast by Army commanders that the security forces are making about 100,000 searches a day at the Segment.

    The small incendiary bombs which wrecked the stores in Bangor are easily made from commonplace materials, secreted in books or cornflake packets, and placed by apparently innocent shoppers. They cannot always be detected by security forces; their placing can be prevented only by the vigilance of other shoppers, and by effective security arrangements for which the stores them selves must be responsible.

    Much the same is true of city centre car bombs. Hon. Members will probably have heard that a huge but selective anti-terrorist operation involving sealing off a complete area near the city centre and conducting a thorough search began this morning. It would be feasible completely to close off city centres to cars and lorries; it would cause massive congestion and bring the commercial life of the Province to a virtual standstill. It would not prevent the placing of devices of the type which were used in Bangor.

    I want to make it absolutely clear that, important as the role of the security forces is and will continue to be, much of the sort of violence which happened last weekend can effectively be prevented only by the actions of ordinary citizens, who have a plain duty to report to the police suspicious activities which they see or information they have about those who plan or carry out destruction and violence. I know that the terrorists try to prevent this by intimidation; the more people who come forward to help the security forces, the more difficult it will be for them. The security forces will continue to do their utmost to arrest them from whichever section of the community they come, and to remove them from the society which they are poisoning. Some of them are even prepared to give interviews to the Press about their crimes.

    There is no question whatsoever of the security forces being prevented by political directives from taking any necessary action against terrorists; the forces have always to bear in mind the consequences of their actions on the commercial and social life of the community which they are protecting. At the end of the day, it is for the community and the police in close co-operation to bear the main responsibility for law and order in Northern Ireland. I can assure the House that I will do everything practicable to support them in this; and to any of the terrorist organisations who, as I have heard suggested, have increased their acts of violence recently to test the present Government I can say quite clearly that I pledge this Government to act resolutely to deal with the terrorists from wherever they come. Nor will they deflect us from those political decisions and actions which this House has supported.