HC Deb 18 May 1978 vol 950 cc791-912

4.7 p.m.

Mr. James Prior (Lowestoft)

The subject of debate today is "Industrial relations in the newspaper industry". I think that it points to the wisdom of the Opposition that they have tabled this matter for debate on a Supply Day. This is emphasised by the spate of comment in the national Press and on radio and television since the announcement was made last week. I believe that the problems go much wider than simply those that beset Fleet Street, although I suspect that a large part of this debate will concentrate on Fleet Street's problems.

The loss of papers in 1976 amounted to 72 million and in 1977 to 101 million. In the first three months of this year we lost 32 million copies of national daily and Sunday papers, and in the first four months of this year we lost 60 million.

This is not only a problem for the capitalist Press, because I was interested to see that Tribune, in its special May Day edition, when it was hoping above all to be able to print large numbers of May Day greetings messages, found itself facing production difficulties. A notice in Tribune said: We very much regret that because of production difficulties at our printers, over which we have no control, this week's special May Day issue has to be severely curtailed. This is a fairly widespread problem and is obviously a serious situation for the country. It is a situation that was unheard of a few years ago. It has always been one of the acceptable facts of British life that the papers were there on the breakfast table and that one could always rely on getting the paper of one's choice early in the morning. It is only in the last few years that people have come to realise that they now do not know whether they will receive their paper. Therefore, it is right that the House should debate this subject today. I believe that it should be a considered debate and that we should try to reach the maximum degree of agreement in all parts of the House.

I begin by quoting something that the Leader of the House said in 1974 when he was Secretary of State for Employment. He said: I agree that disputes which lead to frequent and persistent stoppages in the newspaper industry have a special significance, in the sense that they touch upon the free flow of opinion. If such disputes were to persist in the way that some people forecast, they could drain away the life blood of democracy in this country."—[Official Report, 21st November 1974; Vol. 881, c. 1531.] That was said nearly four years ago, and the situation today is certainly a good deal more serious than it was then.

There is the whole question of the financial loss of those who work in the industry. There is a loss of the profits which could be put into new investment by management and companies and there is a loss of pay which could, in certain circumstances, have gone to the people who works in the industry. Secondly, there have been considerable losses for the wholesale and retail newsagents, commonly called the CTNs—confectionery, tobacco and newsagents. These have been going out of business, not entirely for these reasons but partly because of them, at the rate of about 200 a week. Their numbers in the past four to five years have fallen from around 34,000 to about 27,000.

The people who run those shops are important in our society. They open their shops at all hours of the day or night and they perform an extraordinarily useful service to the community. We must try in every way we can to help them run their businesses. They have made strong representations to me and, I have no doubt, to all hon. Members. There is an employment factor involved here, because if the CTNs go out of business at the present rate we shall be adding even further to our unemployment problems. That is something of which we must not lose sight.

There are also many implications for advertising. I have received a number of complaints over the past few days about the effect that the uncertainty over the printing of newspapers has on the whole advertising industry. It is a lucky thing that at the moment the television companies are fairly full of advertising, otherwise, national newspapers would be suffering a great deal more than they are. The newspapers are suffering, and this in itself has a considerable effect on industry and commerce. If a company cannot plan an advertising campaign with the launching of a new product and be certain that the advertising will be available at the right time, this disrupts the selling of the new product and means that companies tend to go to the medium with which they can be certain of getting advertising space.

The position is even more damaging than that. People from overseas who have looked at this country and admired not only our free Press but the miraculous way in which we have distributed our newspapers over a long time see the present situation and regard it as symptomatic of our malaise. By inference, that damages the reputation of our country and its ability to compete. For all these reasons, it is right that we should debate this subject.

There is no shortage of analyses of the problems. Most of the problems are familiar. A leading trade unionist said to me this week "Fleet Street is in a mess because both sides have made it so. Bad management has been chiefly responsible, but the unions have lost control at national level and union leaders have been stripped of their authority." I put that statement to a leading manager in Fleet Street and he agreed with every word of it. This is not a situation in which we can say that there is a lack of analysis or diagnosis of the problem.

Is the present situation inevitable? Is it getting worse? Where will it end? I do not believe that the current position is inevitable. Other industries facing technological change are doing so without the trauma affecting Fleet Street. What is more—and we must be clear on this point—a lot of people are having to accept technological change who are a lot worse off and who have been offered much worse compensation than some of 'the Fleet Street printers.

I do not believe that it is inevitable that we should have got into this situation. Is the current position getting worse? I think that for the moment it is. It is getting worse because, perhaps, management is at last starting to stand firm. Trade union leaders, trade unionists and Labour Members who know about this subject will know how important it is that when management has made a decision it should stick to it. I have had a good deal of evidence this week from trade union leaders to the effect that nothing has undermined their position so much as managers saying that they will do one thing and, 24 or 48 hours later, when they were frightened about losing circulation to some other newspaper, changing their mind and undercutting the position which the union leadership was trying to take in support of management.

When I say that the situation is getting worse and that we are losing a larger number of papers because management is starting to stand firm, I must make another point. One of the circumstances of union ill discipline has been the changing pattern of newspaper ownership. About 20 years ago newspapers were small companies run by private individuals, and even if a publicly owned company was involved it was usually narrowly based on newspapers and treated by the newspaper proprietors as a private company. Now, individual companies have been steadily eliminated. Kemsley, Cadbury, Aitken and Astor have gone and, instead, newspapers are small parts of large, in some cases multinational, companies. There are Trafalgar House, Atlantic Richfield, the Thomson Organisation, Reeds, Pearson and so on.

Because of the nature of control and because of the wealth of the parent companies, the top boards are not concerned so much either about ownership of newspapers or about the losses that standing up to strikes would involve for them. This will have the effect—it is already having such an effect—of more companies having the financial muscle to resist claims. The most obvious examples of this are The Observer and the Daily Express, where neither David Astor nor Max Aitken had the money to face strikes in the way that perhaps the present management is starting to do. This is an example of where union intransigence has brought its own reaction in terms of more powerful proprietors. Whether this is in the long-term interests of the Press is open to dispute. Whatever might be said about individual proprietors, they knew all about the freedom of the Press. We shall have to wait and see whether the present proprietors know quite so much.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)

I accept entirely what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, and I find it absolutely fascinating that he should develop this vital point of view. Would he not agree that one of the central problems is the fact that in the Fleet Street papers a great number of casuals are employed? The question of casual employment has always bedevilled every industry and has led to serious problems. The people who really want to solve the difficulties in Fleet Street should be thinking seriously about how to get away from casual employment in the industry.

Mr. Prior

This is obviously an important point. The casuals are very much part of the Sunday newspaper scene. They are people who have earned a pretty good screw during the week and want to pick up an extra £50 on a Saturday night by working for the Sundays. This is a general point, too. One of the things that has happened is that people no longer have a loyalty towards their papers. As a result, regrettably, the sort of situation to which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) has referred tends to occur.

I draw the attention of the House to an extract from an excellent publication entitled "Programme for Action" which deals with the report of a body on which management and union leaders sit. There was full agreement on this report. Referring to the future of the industry and the programme's package, it says: To adopt this package is not therefore to accept the soft option. But rejection of it would result in titles continuing to fail as newspaper economies forced them out of business. The inevitable consequences would be compulsory redundancy with little or no advance warning to workers and unions. No Government aid would be available to workers and unions. New forms of printed communications utilising the new technology, if necessary, printed abroad, could compete more and more successfully with a diminishing range of British national newspapers. That is the view of the joint standing committee for the national newspaper industry, which met to consider this problem.

What advice and help should the House give? We all have a deep interest in the maintenance of a competitive free Press, giving a wide choice in political attitudes, analysis of the state of the nation, highbrow or lowbrow, sport or entertainment—the whole gamut. We have a deep interest in all of that. Certainly this "Programme for Action," drawn up by the joint standing committee, points the way to the solution. I believe that a renewed effort should be made to gain its acceptance. Perhaps an attitude survey of shop-floor reaction, sponsored by management and unions, could show how better to get the message across.

I want to look at the management side for a minute. I believe that the management of newspapers has been subject to less influence in industrial relations than perhaps the editorial columns have exerted on nearly every other interest in the country. I cannot help thinking to myself sometimes that, if only the management of the newspapers had subjected themselves to such editorial advice as we have been subjected to in the House or industry generally has been subjected to on various matters, they might not be in quite the mess that they are.

There are one or two things that one can say. I believe that there is not enough involvement and participation at shop-floor level. There must be more down-the-line personnel involvement. It seems to me that too often when something goes wrong it is to the top man that people go, whereas in industry that sort of thing would not happen. There would be much more managerial content the whole way down the managerial line. There is nothing more damaging in industrial relations—I suppose that we all learn this the hard way—than strong words which are followed by weak action or sometimes by no action at all. That is a lesson that needs to be learnt by management too.

On the union side—

Mr. Robin Corbett (Hemel Hempstead)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Prior

Is not the hon. Gentleman going to take part in the debate? If he is, he had better make his own speech.

Union leaders must reassert their undoubted authority. They must use their strength, and, if necessary, they must get together in order to do so. They cannot go on saying, as I think they are inclined to do at present, "We are so fed up with Fleet Street that we're washing our hands of what happens there", because it is far too important. What happens in Fleet Street is vital nationally. Therefore, they must take a personal interest in what happens.

I believe that union leaders have adopted a responsible attitude. I do not want to praise them, because if I did so I should do them no good. I think that they have adopted a responsible attitude, but I hope that they will exert all their pressures to make certain that they can achieve the necessary discipline. In this respect, what is absolutely vital is a proper disputes procedure. The disputes procedure laid down on pages 28 and 29 of the "Programme for Action" seems to me vital. It is a first-class document, one which should be followed.

We cannot afford the constant disruptions. I think it is true to say that there has not been an official dispute in Fleet Street for some while. All the disputes have been unofficial.

Next, I want to say a word to the workers and to quote to them words which were said to me the other day: "Unless there is an industry, there is nothing to fight about. If they go as they are at the moment, there will not be anything to fight about."

The vast majority of printers, as we all know them—we in this House probably know them better than most other people do—are decent people. What we see is the influence of the few being allowed to sway the many. It is not an unusual state of affairs where management has been weak. Those weaknesses can be exploited. There is no point in talking about holding pistols to the heads of these people or anything of that nature.

I have tried to analyse the various problems dispassionately. I hope that a message can go out from the House today that we do not like what is going on. We recognise how damaging it is from the point of view of the industry, those who work in it and a free Press. We expect to see authority restored and common sense prevail. We are telling the industry, all sections of it, to get round the table again and sort it out, and sort it out quickly.

I turn to another matter, which is much more a question for the provincial and magazine Press than for Fleet Street, but is also a matter of considerable concern. I refer to the whole question of the National Union of Journalists and the control it tries to exercise or might try to exercise were it to have a closed shop. I should like to put the matter in this way. One understands the problems of young journalists. One sees that in a number of provincial papers they have been badly paid. They see the much greater pay and much greater strength that perhaps the linotype operators have gathered for themselves, and they say to themselves "If they can do that as a result of a strong union, why can't we have the same?"

There is no doubt that in many respects a number of journalists in a number of newspapers have been badly paid, and they look to the closed shop as a means of giving them the collective strength that they feel they otherwise lack. I understand that, but there are too many examples now where a closed shop certainly could be used, and would be used, as a means of controlling what was published. In this respect I should like to quote from a leading article in The Times some months ago: Rigid application of the closed shop in journalism creates an unacceptable risk of restraint upon liberty. Effective control of what is or is not printed would be put in the hands of a single politically active organisation. The NUJ would be able to decide who wrote for the press and to require its members to write in a particular way on pain of effective exclusion from their trade. The union's present leaders may be fully determined never to exploit the powers that a closed shop would give them. But the political currents in the union are strong and it is impossible to be certain that the same will always be true. That is why we on the Conservative Benches have stated that any Press charter should be firm about the right to join or not to join a union. What has happened to the Press charter? When does the Secretary of State expect to be able to bring a charter before the House?

I now have a further suggestions to make to the right hon. Gentleman. The Government have recently stated—at any rate, they have come out in the Press—the conditions for union membership agreements within certain Civil Service unions. I do not like closed shops, but if one is to have a closed shop the union membership agreement must be drawn in a certain way to give freedom to individuals to decide whether they will pay union dues, pay to a charity or use some other means of paying.

It seems to me that the conditions that the Government are laying down for union membership agreements for their own employees in the Civil Service are perfectly reasonable and suitable for the conditions of a union membership agreement, for example, in the newspaper industry, because it would give that freedom for the individual journalist to decide whether he wished to join a union. If he did not wish to join, he would not be subject to the pressures of discipline which the union might try to exert if he was writing material with which it disagreed.

I believe, therefore, that the Government have another way out of this situation now, not just through the Press charter but through stating that they would support union membership agreements with the sorts of provision that they have discussed themselves and which we have been talking about for some time. That is another thing on which I believe that the Govenment should now give a lead.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Harold Walker)

Will the right hon. Gentleman tell me the source of the document from which he was quoting a few minutes ago?

Mr. Prior

I was quoting not from a TUC document but from the well-inspired sources last week on what conditions the Government were seeking—

Mr. Walker

I am sorry, but perhaps I misled the right hon. Gentleman. A few minutes ago he quoted someone about closed shops in journalism. I did not catch the source of the document.

Mr. Prior

I quoted a leader from The Times of some months ago.

I turn now from the question of preserving the freedom of the Press, which means a good deal more than ensuring that all journalists have access to the Press. I am sure that no one in this House would defend any newspaper which refused to publish a letter from one of its readers purely on the ground that it objected to his or her political or union affiliation. This would rightly be condemned as a most dangerous form of censorship. As recently as 4th May, however, the editor of the Evening Standard found that he was unable to publish a drawing which a reader had submitted with a letter.

The editor was unable to publish the drawing because the Press and process workers' union, SLADE, refused to handle the picture. A joint SLADENGA directive forbids the processing of work other than that done by a trade union member. When the unions demanded to know whether the reader was a member of a union, the editor refused to answer. In that evening's edition he restated his paper's policy that the editorial columns should be kept open to any contributor irrespective of union or political affiliations.

Of course, the editor of the Evening Standard must surely be right. I defy anyone in this House, including those on the Government Benches, to say to the contrary. Yet, as a result of action by the members of SLADE, no picture appeared. If hon. Members are interested, I point out that on page 28 of that edition of the Evening Standard there is a blank space. The caption says: Wonderful Wapping—but this is a wasteland. Perhaps it is as well that the picture was not in. But there is a blank space where it should have been.

SLADE members there demonstrated their ability and determination to censor a newspaper, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth) has given me details of a circular send round by the NGA and the NUJ combined stating that members of those unions should not permit the publication of certain material which had racialist overtones.

I hold no more brief than they would for anyone who sought to stir up racialism in Britain, but I would defend to the last the right of a newspaper to print that material if that was what the editor wished to do. It is not for any part of the trade union movement, whether it be the NUJ, SLADE or whatever, to start saying what can or cannot be printed.

Other activities of SLADE have also—

Mr. Norman Atkinson (Tottenham)

Would the right hon. Gentleman care to comment upon the employer or manufacturer who instructs his agency not to take space in a paper because he identifies that paper with a certain political view to which he or the person buying the space objects? Would the right hon. Gentleman condemn him equally in such a case concerning, for example, Tribune or Labour Weekly, in which certain agencies refuse to take space because they are political papers? Or does the right hon. Gentleman think that these freedoms should extend right across the board?

Mr. Prior

That is a totally separate case in every possible way. It bears no relation to the point I was making. In the case that the hon. Gentleman is talking about, presumably a commercial consideration is involved. It is an advertisement, and an advertiser has the right to decide in which papers he will advertise. There is no connection there at all. What I object to very strongly is the fact that the NUJ and the NGA or SLADE are in a position to say what should or should not be printed in a newspaper, and I believe that that is entirely a wrong use of union power and one that we should bring out into the open and resist to the last breath.

Mr. Corbett

Like the proprietors.

Mr. Prior

The hon. Gentleman says "Like the proprietors", but there is a wide variety of publications throughout the country. There is plenty of scope in the provincial Press and in the national Press for a wide variety of views to be expressed, and anyone who does not believe that does not know what goes on in journalism.

Other activities of SLADE have also given rise to considerable concern to many people in this House, in the country and throughout the trade union movement. Last June, we initiated a debate on the recruiting methods and techniques of SLADE because of this widespread concern. In particular we were concerned at SLADE's failure to consult workers when it wished to recruit and its frequent demands not only for recognition by the employer but for a closed shop. These activities were particularly serious in various art work studios and advertising agencies.

During that debate, the Minister of State expressed the hope that consultations between representatives of the employers and SLADE, held through the good offices of the TUC printing industries committee, would help to improve matters, although only last month he stated, in reply to a Question that I put to him, I very much regret that as yet as I have seen little evidence that the situation has significantly changed."—[[Official Report, 3rd April 1978; Vol. 947, c. 51.] I gather that further talks are planned, but our information is that SLADE's attitude has not changed all that much.

As a recent article in The Sunday Times by Eric Jacobs showed, several thousand people have effectively been coerced into membership of the SLADE Art Union. Why should these people now not be able to leave the union if they so wish, free from the threat of blacking or the secondary boycott? Indeed, at this moment members of the SLADE Art Union are demonstrating outside the SLADE annual delegate conference at Scarborough because, although the SAU comprises about one-third of the total SLADE membership, its members are not represented at conference. They are also worried that members of the SAU will not be able to vote in any ballot of SLADE members on the proposed merger between SLADE and the NUJ.

It is no wonder that they are worried. On the one hand, SLADE said that it would abide by the letter and spirit of the recent High Court judgment in which temporary injunctions were imposed on it, yet, on the other hand, its general secretary says that members of the Art Union are now in limbo. It is hardly surprising that the banners at Scarborough today say "Shame on SLADE" and refer to members of the Art Union as second-class citizens.

SLADE's attitude and behaviour has been quite inexcusable. It is not as if the union was driven to such extremes by an unreasonable approach on the part of the employers—not that the tactics used by SLADE could ever be justified in any circumstances. But, in an effort to reach a joint understanding, the employers are willing to recognise as appropriate unions any one of four unions, including SLADE. They are happy that representatives of the unions concerned should meet and put their point of view to their employees, and they are ready to recognise a union for bargaining purposes where a substantial proportion of employees or groups of employees belong to one of those unions.

In return, all that is asked by the employers is that the individual employee has the right to choose whether to join a union, free from the threat of blacking or secondary boycott. I cannot believe that anyone in this House can take a different view from that. All this seems to me to be very fair and reasonable behaviour, and I am certain that that is the view that we all ought to take.

I suspect that that is the view with which many people in the trade union movement—in fact, nearly all the trade union movement—would agree, and even, perhaps, the majority of the NGA and SLADE as well. I hope that in any further talks on the principles involved a sensible accommodation can be reached. I very hope also that both SLADE and the NGA will be ready to renegotiate on the issue of the pre-entry closed shop when the new agreements are negotiated with employers this summer.

I hope that the message of this House today to Fleet Street will be to accept the "Programme for Action" and make it work. I hope that the message to the NUJ will be that the privilege of a free Press is of greater importance than a press-ganged union membership. I hope that the message to SLADE-NGA will be to stop bringing the whole of the trade union movement into disrepute. The greater the degree of unanimity we show, the more likely we are to succeed. A free Press and democracy go hand in hand. That is a stand that this House has to take.

4.42 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Albert Booth)

The newspaper industry has been responsible for the publication of a good deal of criticism of industrial relations in other sectors of the country. In fact, editorials on this subject are frequently excellent examples of the pan calling the kettle sooty-bottomed. It is therefore a little ironic that the Opposition have sought, in a Supply Day debate, to bring forward a subject that reflects adversely on industrial relations in newspapers.

Nevertheless, having said that, I very much appreciate the spirit in which the subject has been introduced by the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior). I agreed with a number of things that he said. Even where I disagreed with him, I felt that he introduced the matter in a constructive way, which can lead to a debate on the issue, which can serve a useful purpose.

The problems of industrial relations in the newspaper industry at this time are the more critical because they coincide with a period when the newspaper industry is facing one of the most significant periods of change in the history of printing. There may be a relationship between the two. It may be that the new technology of computerised photocomposition in place of the old hot-metal methods is the cause of part of the industrial relations problems.

It is not surprising that a change of this magnitude should give rise to differences between management and unions. But a newspaper industry, which thrives on reporting the conflicts and challenges in our society, must itself meet the challenge of new print technology and resolve the conflict that this produces in a way that does not bring the presses of this country to a halt.

The joint standing committee which emerged from talks between unions and management in the first half of 1976 published the proposals, designed to accommodate the introduction of this new technology, under the heading of the publication "Programme for Action"—the document to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

A great many of the recommendations of the ACAS report were embodied in the "Programme for Action". These proposals were commended by the printing unions but were rejected by their members in a ballot in the spring of 1977. I believe that the union leaders are the people best qualified to judge the reasons for this rejection by their membership, to reflect those reasons in further negotiations with management and proprietors on this issue, and to convey to their own membership the scope, the opportunities and the limitations which they believe that the new technology will bring to employment in the Press.

In the absence of agreement on new national machinery to deal more effectively with these issues, many newspaper publishers are now undertaking negotiations with trade unions to bring about the advance of the introduction of the new technology. The Mirror Group is probably the one which has made the most progress towards this goal, but even there it would seem that several problems still remain to be ironed out. Most other Fleet Street managements are already engaged in discussions of a similar kind, although some plans are more ambitious than others.

I believe that what has to be recognised is that unless these changes are introduced it is highly unlikely that the industry will be able to maintain reasonable employment levels, and the future of Fleet Street itself, with its present range of titles, will be at risk over this problem. There is no immutable law which requires national newspapers any longer to be printed in London. This is an issue, therefore, which is of concern not only to proprietors, to editors and to those who work in the industry, but rightly also—as the right hon. Gentleman said—to those who live by retailing newspapers. It is an issue that should properly concern this House and all who are concerned with the dissemination of news and opinion through the medium of the Press.

Any publicity that we give to disputes in Britain tends to sustain the myth of the "British disease". It is worth recollecting, therefore, just for a moment, that Press industrial relations problems are not by any means unique to this country. Recent major disputes in the Federal Republic of Germany and in Denmark have been very much rooted in exactly these problems in this kind of area. These countries have experienced difficulties in the introduction of new technology in the Press.

In West Germany, union resistance to certain employer proposals for the introduction of new technological developments led to an almost total shut-down of German presses during the middle of March, when the negotiations had broken down, and the employers instigated a lockout in retaliation for some selective strike action which took place at that time.

Within the last 12 months Denmark has also seen a major stoppage over new technology and changed manpower requirements in the Press. It is relevant to point out, particularly in view of some things that have been said recently in industrial relations debates in the House, that in Denmark legal sanctions were used against those who took part in strike action in the Danish Press, and that this seems to have exacerbated the ill-feeling of the dispute to the point where it actually spilled over into violence.

For a long time in this country the number of days lost due to disputes in the newspaper industry compared very favourably indeed with the position in other industries. Statistics published by my Department for the number of days lost due to industrial disputes in the industry in 1976 show that the figure is below the average for all manufacturing industries. The statistics for the previous five years, which were published in the ACAS report, show that in most years the figures for the national newspaper industry were better than those for the paper, printing and publishing industries as a whole. Indeed, in some years the national newspaper industry had a lower figure for the number of days lost due to strikes than did the provincial newspapers.

Having said that, I nevertheless accept very much of what the right hon. Gentleman said about the nature of disputes in the newspaper industry at present. It is the case that in the early part of this year many more copies had been lost than previously. Judged by that criterion, industrial relations in the Press have worsened. I do not contend that the figures that we publish for days lost due to industrial disputes are necessarily the best criteria of the damage that is done in this industry as a result of bad industrial relations and forms of dispute.

Mr. Angus Maude (Stratford-on-Avon)

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned that point. I hope that he will emphasise the fact that when one has a situation in which a handful of 10 or 20 men can stop a whole newspaper, or half an edition of a newspaper, the number of copies lost are overwhelmingly the indicator by which one has to judge the prosperity or prospects of the industry.

Mr. Booth

I fully accept that point. If it will help the House I shall develop it just a little. Our figures for days lost at an establishment do not include the total days lost as a result of a dispute. That is particularly relevant in this industry. The printing process is such that a stoppage by even a few workers can result in a total loss of production. Therefore, I am at one with the hon. Gentleman in his contention that if we are to judge the effects of disputes in relation to the ability of the industry to perform its task, we must look at the losses of production which result, or the failure to deliver newspapers, possibly more than we look at the number of hours or days lost in actual dispute.

The reference to figures of publications lost, of more than 50 million, may not tally exactly with the various counts made, but that is not of importance. What is of importance, if we accept this way of judging it, is that there has been a massive loss of tens of millions of copies in the early part of this year. That is a serious matter.

Having said that, we must look more closely at the reasons for some disputes which are peculiar to Fleet Street. In doing so I feel obliged to say that many of the roots of Fleet Street's problems lie in the policy of management, or the absence of management policy, in industrial relations. Those managers who concede to unofficial demands things that they denied to official union representatives only a few days previously do nothing but undermine the authority of unions in an area where the authority of unions is of considerable importance if we are to have industrial peace.

Most disputes—in fact, almost all disputes—which have taken place in Fleet Street this year have been unofficial disputes. By definition, they are disputes that have been caused as a result of a failure to use procedures for the resolution of the problems that have arisen.

Mr. Max Madden (Sowerby)

Can my right hon. Friend tell the House what is the present situation regarding efforts being made to resolve the dispute at The Observer, which clearly has important implications? Can he say whether any approaches have been made to the Department or to ACAS to assist in that dispute. Can he say what efforts are being made to resolve it?

Mr. Booth

I shall try to get the very latest information so that it can be given by my hon. Friend when winding up the debate. The matter is not being dealt with directly by my Department, but ACAS is very interested in finding ways of solving problems in the industry. Of course, as a result of its report, it has a special concern to see how far its recommendations, if observed, would prevent the occurrence of a dispute such as that on The Observer.

Mr. Eric Moonman (Basildon)

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the NGA, despite some of the harsh words said previously, is establishing its national council meeting tomorrow afternoon in Bedford to try to resolve some of the matters, including one of the sticking points with regard to The Observer, namely, the management's disciplining of the 25 men who went on unofficial action last Saturday night?

Mr. Booth

I understand that that is the case, but I do not want to be drawn into commenting too closely on this matter. I appreciate some of the problems that relate to a call upon unions to discipline members, such as that which exists in Fleet Street. I hope that as a result of the meeting to which my hon. Friend referred it will be possible to resolve the matter. But it needs some understanding and appreciation on both sides that what can be done by way of disciplining members now in Fleet Street may be something very much more limited than that which would be possible had the recommendations of ACAS, to which leaders of the unions and management subscribe, been implemented.

In fact, ACAS suggested that a model national procedure agreement might be worked out which could be adopted for use by the individual houses. The ACAS report on the national newspaper industry drew attention to the highly fragmented nature of collective bargaining in Fleet Street. It said that while negotiations on basic pay do take place at national level, very large scope was left for negotiations at house and departmental level between managements and individual chapels on a whole range of issues. The report noted that changes are necessary in areas of manning, demarcation, differentials and related matters. One of the most significant conclusions contained in the ACAS report was that which said: Sectionalism has produced agreements that bear no strict relationship to each other, narrowly based productivity bargains, a high disputes potential, and short-term industrial relations policies by management". That is a very damning indictment of an industrial relations situation. A number of recommendations made by ACAS, in fact, the majority, have been endorsed by the Royal Commission on the Press. I believe that there is now an absolute need for unions and management in the newspaper industry to make a fresh effort to bring about the implementation of those recommendations. We have to acknowledge that, so far, little has been done to bring about that implementation. To some extent the slow progress, or the lack of progress, is a measure of the complexity of the problems facing the industry. I think that I would be running away from a fair judgment if I did not also say that it reflects a reluctance on the part of some managements and union members to abandon old methods which have possibly prevailed in the industry for too long.

The recent decision of The Sun to leave the NPA is an illustration of the different approaches taken by individual managements within Fleet Street. Wide variations between product and market quite understandably lead to different newspapers attaching different priorities in those negotiations on the parts of the ACAS report which should be first implemented. I think that the industry needs a strong and effective management organisation which can give a clear management view on some of the major issues raised by the Royal Commission in its endorsement of the ACAS report.

I go along with the right hon. Member for Lowestoft in hoping that the unions will consider the ACAS recommendations very carefully indeed. I recognise that without an increase in effective communications between union officials at all levels and their memberships it is quite improbable that industrial relations in the industry can ever be put on a secure footing. I know that the national leadership of the printing unions accepts the need for some kind of positive action. I believe that it must play a major part in a fresh attempt to bring about that which it has already agreed is desirable. I therefore join in an appeal to unions and management to accept the urgent need to examine how far those recommendations can be implemented.

The right hon. Member for Lowestoft asked some questions relating to the Press charter. He pointed out quite fairly that this is a matter possibly of more relevance to industrial relations problems of the provincial Press rather than Fleet Street. Nevertheless, I think that this is a very important issue. It is so important that after my initial talks with Lord Pearce and others arrangements were made for a whole series of meetings conducted by my hon. Friend the Minister of State. They have been aimed at producing the widest possible area of acceptance of the broad aim which I think this House sought to bring about when it laid upon me the obligation to produce a Press charter, if it could not be done by agreement within the industry.

As a result of the series of discussions and meetings, I think that I shall serve the House best if I can reduce to the minimum the number of issues in the charter on which I shall have to place a decision before the House, and expand to the maximum those sectors of the charter which reflect agreement within the industry. Therefore, I thought that it would be welcome to the House if I indicated to some extent the area in which agreement had been reached.

First, all the parties to the charter are prepared to declare their support for the freedom of the Press to collect and publish information and to publish comment and criticism, and they accept that it is their duty to defend that freedom as an essential part of a democratic society. They agree that the charter should apply within the United Kingdom to all newspapers, periodicals and news agencies.

We have got a considerable measure of agreement on the need to avoid improper pressures being placed upon editors. In fact, the parties to the charter have pledged themselves to abstain from the exercise of any improper pressure and to resist such improper pressures from any quarter, external or internal.

Under the same heading, they have agreed that any action or threat, of whatever kind, from whatever quarter, which is calculated to induce an editor to distort news, comment or criticism, or, contrary to his or her judgment, to publish, suppress or modify news, comment or criticism, shall be deemed, ipso facto, to be an improper measure.

Mr. Norman Atkinson

Will my right hon. Friend say whether that includes improper pressures coming from those purchasers of newspaper space who make it a condition of their purchase that newspapers follow a particular line, and those buyers of space who exclude certain newspapers from their purchases because of the views held by particular newspapers?

Mr. Booth

The agreement is an agreement to resist improper pressure from any source, but those who are bound by the agreement are only the signatories to the agreement. Those who hire newspaper space are not necessarily parties to the Press charter.

Among the further issues agreed on this question of improper pressure is that the editor or, in appropriate cases, the editor-in-chief, shall accept and be accorded final responsibility for the content of his publication. Employers of editors shall recognise that responsibility and the independence of editorial judgment. The editor shall not, therefore, normally be subject to ad hoc interference from his employers but may be required by them to observe basic editorial policy and the practice that has been agreed between him and them.

In the difficult area of union membership agreements, it has been agreed that union membership agreements shall not require editors of news agencies to become or remain a member of any trade union or association, and shall not require a newspaper editor to become or remain a member of any trade union or association.

In the area of access to the Press, which I know is a matter of particular concern to many hon. Members, it has been agreed that access to the Press shall be free, and any person shall have a right to submit material for publication. The editor shall have the right to commission material from any contributor.

I think that this represents a fair measure of progress.

Mr. Maude

Would that include art work as well as written material?

Mr. Booth

I think that the area that we were discussing in the talks was one of the written word. Certainly the hon. Member has raised a very interesting question and I shall have to consider it rather carefully. I accept the importance of it. However, it is not a question to which I should give an immediate off-the-cuff reaction.

What I wish to urge the House to do is to appreciate that we have made considerable progress towards agreement. We have not yet covered all the areas that we are required to cover by the 1974 Act, but I believe that it is well worth while to spend the time necessary to get that broadest possible measure of agreement. I think that any legal enforcement of disagreed provisions would be a very poor alternative to getting the broad agreement of all the parties to the charter.

Mr. Julian Critchley (Aldershot)

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this charter, even were it to see the light of day—and that depends upon Liberal support, which it will not get—will be a voluntary charter without the sanction of law and will not, therefore, be worth the paper upon which it is written?

Mr. Booth

No. Whether there is total agreement to the charter or whether it is a combination of agreed provisions and those that I shall propose as the best possible cover in an area in which one cannot obtain agreement, the charter will have a certain legal standing. There will be three types of legal action in which reference can be made to the charter. It will be appropriate to consideration of unfair dismissal cases. I think that it will be appropriate in some cases of breach of contract. It could be appropriate in some cases of a union member bringing an action against his own union for, say, exclusion from membership.

The precise legal purpose of the charter is defined in the 1974 Act. But I urge that we should not be concerned about only the precise legal purpose. I am suggesting that we should be concerned, as Members of the House of Commons, about the value of a charter, which has the agreement of all signatory parties, in resolving the problem which caused the House to insert those provisions in the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act.

I very much regret that the right hon. Member for Lowestoft should again assert the importance of giving an absolute right not to belong to a trade union, in this context or in any wider context. I do not believe that that was the purpose of the Act. My view appears to have been shared by the Royal Commission on the Press when it considered that. The purpose of the Act was quite clearly to define the way in which it would be legal and proper to form membership agreements in particular circumstances and to consider what safeguards should attach to them.

I think that it behoves the right hon. Gentleman, if he really believes that we should have some legislative provision to establish an absolute right not to belong—to cut across the right of employer and union to form a union membership agreement—to enunciate the principle on which that can be based. If he is holding that it is right to do that in the case of the Press because a union membership agreement—in his view, not in mine—may lead to the stopping of the flow or dissemination of information, one cannot stop at journalists and editors in withholding that right. Printers also can stop the flow of information. Those who drive lorries carrying newspapers can also stop the flow of information. If that is the contention, one would have to put a legal bar or impediment in the way of the formation of union membership agreements over a much wider area.

I would also pose the question how it could be enforced in any case, and who would have to be locked up if someone proceeded to make an agreement in breach of that or continued to operate an agreement, as was done through the period of the Industrial Relations Act 1971.

Therefore, I believe that to raise this issue now does not help to achieve the main purpose of the House which caused the House to embody the Press charter requirement in the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act.

Mr. Prior

Would the right hon. Gentleman like to comment on a union membership agreement which has written into it the sort of safeguards which it is proposed to write into the Civil Service union membership agreement, because that would go a very long way to giving the protection which the individual journalist requires?

Mr. Booth

I am prepared to comment on that, but, by way of an additional comment, I should be interested to know whether the right hon. Gentleman approves of those conditions for union membership agreements for civil servants. That is the area for which they are designed, but he has not given the House that information.

The considerations that the Government have given to what would be appropriate conditions for union membership agreements for civil servants are in line with the spirit and intention of the House, which was that the conditions that attach to union membership agreements, apart from the narrow area covered within legislation, should be worked out between the employer and the unions concerned.

As regards the Civil Service, the Government stand in the role of the employer. Therefore, it is proper that the Government should, where there is a call made upon them by the civil servants' unions for union membership agreements, closed shop arrangements, to propose the safeguards that they think proper in the circumstances and to negotiate them with the unions concerned.

Mr. Prior

I quote from a handout that I issued last Friday, in which it is stated: We welcome this apparent concern of the Government's for the rights of individual employees. But why the double standards—why should the Government wish to afford this kind of protection solely to its own employees? Surely it is now time for the Government to act by taking the necessary step to provide adequate safeguards for all employees affected by closed shop agreements.

Mr. Booth

If I were feeling sensitive, I should resent the phrase "apparent concern". The Government's concern for the individual rights of those they employ is real and continuing. We expect employers, whether they be Ministers in Government, managements of newspapers, those who run nationalised industries or those who run great private concerns, to be concerned for the individual rights and position of those they employ. There is no duality of standard. What we are doing is what we expect and encourage others to do. As there is no duality of standard, we shall not insist on or seek to propose legislation that for one section of the newspaper industry would deny the right of employers and unions to reach agreements where we believe that it is right that they should reach agreements in a whole other wide area of employment.

The issue of the Press charter is important and has industrial relations consequences, mainly in the provincial newspapers. However, I urge that the issue should not hold up the appeal that I and the right hon. Gentleman have jointly addressed to management and unions in the newspaper industry, again to try to implement the broad recommendations of ACAS, which we both believe will make a considerable contribution to the health, well-being and maintenance of an important industry.

When we think of the importance and the nature of the industry's product, the newspaper, the preparation of the day's news, there can be very few items that are more perishable. The day's news is prepared for printing in a newspaper. If the day's production is lost, it can never be regained. If it is produced and delivered on time, the printed word serves a vital function in the democratic process. If production is a day late, the sheet of paper on which the skill of journalists and printers has been lavished becomes inferior to a blank sheet of paper used for wrapping up fish and chips. Even if there were no other justification, that alone would warrant a much higher priority being given in the newspaper industry to the building of procedures for the determination of terms and conditions, for the avoidance of disputes, for the preservation of the service that the Press can uniquely perform, and for the maintenance of a sound livelihood for all those who work in it.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond (Orkney and Shetland)

I must declare an interest as a trustee of the Guardian and Manchester Evening News. I must make it clear that trustees receive no pay or profit. They play no part in either the editorial or general day-to-day management of the paper.

There has been so far a considerable measure of agreement in the debate, which I welcome. That is not surprising because the present problems of Fleet Street, whatever the past may have shown, are well known and may be fairly clearly defined. The Secretary of State has given a clear warning to the disruptive elements in Fleet Street of what is the inevitable result if they continue with present practices.

The debate is really about industrial relations. Although the charter has featured in the debate, I do not intend to devote a great deal of time to it. However, I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for saying something about it. There is considerable concern about the length of time that it is taking to produce the charter. That adds to the general uncertainty of the industry. We know that conversations have been taking place, and it was useful for the right hon. Gentleman to tell us his view of how far they have proceeded. In so far as they have made progress, the progress seems to be in the right direction.

It is good to know that freedom of the Press has been agreed upon. Surely that is the absolute minimum that could be expected. It may be that that does not carry us very much further forward.

Although the right hon. Gentleman's statement will have to be studied more carefully, I noticed that it contained certain weasel words such as "normal", which is always rather alarming. Those of us who are opposed to the closed shop have always had reservations about the effectiveness of any charter. When the charter is completed, it will have to be most carefully examined by the House. As has been said from the Conservative Benches, one of the most important points is what if any sanction it will have behind it.

In the course of the debate advertisers have been mentioned. If they are to be discussed, we had better have some evidence that advertisers nowadays attempt to influence editorial policy. Certainly they have the right to choose in which newspapers they will advertise. If there are any instances of advertisers attempting to write leading articles, so to speak, it would be a good thing if we knew of them.

I do not intend to go further into the charter. It will have to be closely examined. However, I hope that the Government will give us some indication of their idea of timing. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is everything to be said for conducting conversations at a pace that will give us some chance of reaching agreement. However, the years pass and the election is advancing, in spite of the Liberal Party, perhaps. It would be good if some indication could be given that the Government consider the charter as something that will not appear in the present Parliament.

I turn to industrial relations in the Press. Of course, the Press is not one industry but a great many. Fleet Street is only one part of it. The importance of the national Press, though great, is declining. It is declining partly through its own fault, partly because of the improvement in much of the local Press, and partly because of the competition of television and radio.

Most of the present trouble arises in Fleet Street. Most of the local Press is free from trouble and maintains a high standard. I read my local Press from cover to cover. I should do so even if I were not the local Member of Parliament. In Orkney and Shetland we now have local radio, which is making a considerable impact. The local Press is now, to my mind, better written and much better printed than most of the national Press. The early editions of the national Press that are received in my constituency frequently appear to be printed in a different language. The local Press gives a great deal of genuine and important news.

The operations within the Press are really different industries. There may come a time—I am not suggesting that it will be immediate—when printing and production are hived off from the editorial function. They might be carried on by co-operatives of printers. However, no one can be in any doubt about the gravity of the position in Fleet Street. The national Press has frequently cried "wolf". The whole point of the parable about the wolf is that the wolf did eventually come.

That may yet happen in Fleet Street, as the Minister and the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) realise. The national Press suffers from a legacy of poor management by some of the old Press barons and a policy of appeasement. I wholly agree with the Minister that the business of the trade unions has often been made much more difficult by management suddenly giving way after having told the official union representatives that it intended to stand firm. This is not the way to conduct good industrial relations.

The national Press has a long history of restrictive practices, excessive pay, and overmanning which has not made it easy to obtain good management and efficient working. However, management, though no doubt it has black spots, has greatly improved and those days are to some extent over. The present main danger lies in sudden strikes and breaches of agreements by often very small numbers within the industry and nearly always confined to Fleet Street. It is not generally a conflict between management and the trade union secretaries or leaders. As the Minister has said, none of the recent trouble has been official, and it is not about grievances which the unions support.

It is, therefore, unfair to blame the union secretaries. These troubles are often a sign of the inability of the unions to control some of their members. It may be that the process of dealing with these grievances is too slow. It is noticeable that usually these troubles stop papers or create difficulties for papers for three or four or five days. The reason for that is often that it takes that amount of time before the union secretaries and union officials can get round to dealing with the matter of bringing some sense into the situation.

There are agreements between the managements and the unions for settling grievances. There are the recommendations of the joint standing committee. The trouble is that these are far too often disregarded. The result is the loss of 55 million to 60 million copies of newspapers this year alone. I agree with what has been said that it is not only the total stoppage of newspapers which is making it difficult for the industry. It is the constant friction, the trouble with getting printing runs completed and the day-to-day anxiety as to whether we are able to produce the full newspaper which is intended.

Why do the small groups of workers behave as they do? It is partly because of lack of respect for the undertakings in which they work and partly because of a lack of loyalty to institutions and to agreements. I am afraid that this is becoming a feature of many aspects of British life. It is not confined to the printing industry, nor to journalism in general. As the editorial of The Times today points out, there is also the extraordinary internal structure of the industry. This makes it all too easy for small groups to disrupt production. As in so much of the British industry, there is the incredible complication of wage rates and agreements and the number of chapels and unions involved. These complications make it difficult to negotiate and to run a sensible and fair operation.

There is the major issue of the change to new technology. Certain parts of the industry have successfully changed over, if not to the whole of the new technology, then to some of it. I do not speak for The Guardian, nor do I speak about The Guardian, but we have been fairly free from troubles. Therefore, it is not true that the industry is making no progress towards introducing new technology, because it is. However, progress is not fast enough. In the case of one newspaper there is £3 million worth of new investment which has never been used. It is not much use calling upon British industry to invest if, when the investment is put in, it is not used.

I sympathise with workers who are threatened with redundancy owing to changes in method, but some of the trouble has arisen from restrictive practices and huge wages. There are agreements by union leaders about the introduction of the new machinery and methods and there are redundancy payments. The difficulties will not be made easier by a Luddite attitude towards the introduction of this machinery. The only hope for the industry is that these agreements will be honoured.

There are one or two minor contributory factors. Some of the unions do not have their headquarters in London and are not primarily concerned with the London operations. That cuts both ways. It often means, however, that there is delay in the process of dealing with disputes.

I was once a director of The Guardian and had some responsibility for a paper. I found that for an industry which is meant to be concerned with communications, the newspaper industry is extremely bad at communicating within itself. It has already been said that newspapers lecture everyone else in the world on how they ought to behave whilst setting an extremely bad example. I mention an obvious example of this. Occasionally I used to lunch with Mr. Cecil King. He spent much of lunch declaiming against the iniquities of British industry and particularly its monstrous inefficiency, over-manning and restrictive practices. On one occasion he asked whether I would like to go round the Daily Mirror building. I said that I would. There we looked down on people reading novels while Mr. King finished his lunch. That was a prime example of the very things against which he had been declaiming.

What can be done? There have been warnings that some papers will close. These warnings may have an effect. I expect that The Observer will be published this Sunday, but it is a terrible reflection of the anarchy in the industry that such warnings have to be given. It is no good if the warnings have only a temporary effect. I am afraid that if the trouble continues The Observer may ultimately close. I think that the proprietors of that newspaper probably mean what they say.

Whatever may be done about the long-term structure of the industry and whatever view is taken of trade union power, it is essential in the short term that the unions should be fully supported in their efforts to achieve some sense, orderliness and respect for agreements. The Government must not only make it crystal clear, as they have done in the debate, that this is their view, but they must maintain their attitude that they will not encourage the belief that if individual papers get into trouble simply because of anarchy by small numbers of their workers, the public will somehow bail them out.

There is the belief at the back of many people's minds that the Government will now allow papers to go to the wall and that the taxpayer ultimately will pay. This is a disastrous belief which undermines the authority of the unions and management. I do not suggest that the Government are in the least responsible for this belief. However, they must continue to make it clear that they will not bail out individual papers which have got into trouble simply because of internal wrecking by their own work people. The future lies in agreements between management and labour which will be respected.

It has already been said that the Newspaper Publishers Association has a part to play. I agree that it has. However, at the moment the NPA is not very effective in this area. It has other uses. We cannot in the short term place much reliance upon it. This is a matter that has to be dealt with by the management of the newspapers.

The unions have won great privileges and have a special position under the law. They can hardly continue to claim these privileges and this special position if they are to wash their hands of the constant disruption caused by their members. I do not suggest that this is a matter which should be dealt with in the debate, but it will become an issue which at some time or other has to be tackled. I suspect that one answer must be that unions should be not compelled, but allowed, to enter into binding agreements to which, if they are broken, the ordinary sanctions applied to other agreements should apply.

It is sad that all this is happening now because, as far as we are concerned, in some ways the outlook is better than it was. Advertising is picking up and many papers which were unprofitable have become profitable in recent years. It is vital that the industry should not cut its own throat by practices which are the fault of tiny groups of people within it at a time when, with a little good fortune, it will be able to stand firmer on its feet than it has done for many years.

5.31 p.m.

Mr. Eric Moonman (Basildon)

Like the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), I must declare an interest, having been a member of the National Graphical Association for 34 years and representing that union in this House.

I hope that some of the common ground that has filtered through the three speeches that we have so far heard will continue throughout the rest of the debate.

I welcome this opportunity to discuss the problems of the newspaper industry—an industry whose well-being is fundamental to our democracy. I hope that hon. Members in later speeches will resist the temptation to trivialise or to politicise the debate. It is all too easy, but not very realistic, to assign the roles of goodies and baddies. If we indulge in such simplifications, we shall miss the chance to identify and to explain those major areas of agreement which could be developed to maintain a viable and ever-expanding newspaper industry for the benefit of all.

I should like to mention three areas which I suspect go to the root of the present difficulties in Fleet Street. The first is the type of production. That point was commented upon by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. The second is clearly communications within the industry. The third, which perhaps has not been touched upon as much as it should have been, is fear of the new technology.

At the heart of the first problem is the type of production. Those who have worked on newspapers know full well the tensions which quickly creep into that kind of production line. For a few hours each night the production line runs flat out to produce the next day's papers. The work is done under pressure and tension and in the knowledge that if the production line stops, that edition is lost for good. Other industries can in the main make good their losses, whatever the reason for the stoppage, but not the newspaper industry. There is no sale for yesterday's newspaper.

The practice of industrial relations in such circumstances demands real leadership from both management and trade unions. Without such leadership, a tense situation becomes inflammable and a minor irritant becomes a major dispute.

I make one comment on those who both here and elsewhere say that newspaper editorials are prone to suggest advice about how industry generally can handle its problems, yet do not seem to be able to succeed in dealing with their own difficulties. Those who make such criticism do not understand the difference between the newspaper management and the editorial function. It is not unusual for those doing the creative work—the newspaper editorial people—to see and identify problems in society, to comment upon them, and to have their views published. But newspaper management is a different game altogether.

I know from experience on the management side of the industry that there is a poor, but slowly improving, quality of competence. It is with such weaknesses, together with irresponsible elements in some union sectors, that the basis of many disputes begins. It is thus not so unusual for those writing in the newspapers to comment on what goes on elsewhere and for their internal management to let them down by not taking their editorial advice.

This is a time of crisis on Fleet Street. That phrase has been used on many occasions. I think that I have attended all the debates in this House on this matter during the last 10 years or so and they have been rare. But now we have reached a particular dilemma. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said that the industry was beginning to move up a bit because of increased advertising. That is true, but it makes it all the more difficult when we realise that the loss of 54 million copies of newspapers in the first four months of this year has been unprecedented. It is a loss which cannot be justified by anyone.

Those in Fleet Street who may be listening to this debate today should realise that those who fail to help to resolve the present dilemma will get no satisfaction from Members of this House nor the public. No one here would try to justify that scale of loss and damage. As has been pointed out, it is a question not merely of loss of production of papers but ultimately of the retention of papers in future.

I shall briefly catalogue the losses. They are very serious, but they are not confined to one type of paper. Within the past few months, the Daily Mirror has lost more than 5 million copipes, The Sun 23 million, the Daily Telegraph 7.6 million, The Times 3.l million and the Daily Express and the Daily Mail more than 2 million each. Only one dispute affected all newspapers. That was the distributors' warehousemen's overtime ban. All the other disputes were unconnected, involving different unions and companies. In the main, the disputes were unofficial stoppages.

Losses on this scale argue something organically wrong with the industry. One thing that is wrong is the nature of the structure of ownership. That point was developed by the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior). I think that he was in order to do that, because the spirit and the feel of a newspaper is different in 1978 from what it was 20 or 25 years ago. It is difficult now to identify the ownership and its commitment to newspaper production. There was previously a feeling of common identity.

Three large corporations now produce 80 per cent. of all our national daily and Sunday newspapers, and the majority of papers are now produced by subsidiaries of groups which have no interest in news as such but only in newspapers as another commodity along with travel, television, oil or whatever other companies they own. That must have an impact on the way in which managements take their decisions when dealing with trade unions. The concentration of ownership has made the industry highly competitive, and management has reacted to the situation by encouraging bad habits in labour relations rather than seeking new understandings with the trade unions.

The disintegration of the Newspaper Publishers Association is a symptom of this situation. Some years ago, Mr. Laurence Scott. on his retirement as chairman of The Guardian and the Manchester Evening News, referred to the NPA as that necessary but ineffective body, which seldom seems to be able to agree on anything but which, by its existence, does nevertheless exert a considerable and helpful influence on our affairs". Regrettably, even that modest criticism would not apply today, because the NPA role have proved even more ineffective. It is unable to tackle some of the structural problems.

It is odd that, at a time of such concern and anxiety, the present chairman serves only in a part-time capacity. I find that extraordinary because, with all the pressures of Fleet Street, I should have imagined the NPA would be justified in having a full-time chairman and proper back-up for its work. Nevertheless, it explains why the Mirror group got out. It restricted its flexibility in dealing with the unions. The News of the World group has also given notice of its withdrawal. Even when all Fleet Street newspapers were members, the NPA proved incapable of operating as was intended. It rarely succeeded in preventing individual managements from buying off impending stoppages.

There are not many solutions to the problems of Fleet Street I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will use whatever influence he has, perhaps in the more distant future rather than in the next few days, to ensure that consideration is given to the whole concept and structure of the NPA, because it is not working at the moment.

Dog eat dog is not the climate in which to establish good industrial relations practices. The signs are that the situation has deteriorated when newspapers try to take advantage of another paper's stoppage by producing extra copies. This highlights the fact that there are few good human relationships between the companies, and the competitiveness was very much borne out by the Daily Express which, when another newspaper was unable to appear, went to considerable trouble to produce extra copies and went a long way to justify its action through the courts.

To understand the organic problems of Fleet Street we must resist the temptation to indulge in union bashing. The unions will stand up to the problems with which they are confronted. The NGA, NATSOPA and the other unions know the dilemmas and are dealing seriously with unofficial action. A meeting is to take place tomorrow of the full national council of the NGA over The Observer dispute. I am not as optimistic as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland that it will succeed in producing a paper on Sunday, but a genuine attempt is being made.

The unions know that some elements of these matters need to be tackled. We must also look—and I hope that the Secretary of State will do this—not only at the NPA but at the way in which some papers have done their own thing to the ultimate detriment of good industrial relations.

A second factor that contributes to bad industrial relations is the poor communication within the newspapers. Despite the training and development of management, there are many people in the industry who feel that disputes escalate because no one knows what is happening. Such feeling is generated when the unions argue that the other side is taking advantage of its control of the medium by publishing its version of a controversial dispute.

On occasion, this has led to a straightforward refusal to print the newspaper with the offending material in it—a refusal which provokes politicians into high-sounding polemics about the freedom of the Press. This is a highly volatile situation and everyone on both sides of the industry has been engaged in trying to contain it.

If industrial relations had been properly conducted in the first place, the communications system would have been set up to deal with these matters. An NGA officer, Mr. Bill Booroff, has attempted to overcome some of the difficulties that arise when an editorial attacks a union or goes far beyond a mere statement of a particular dispute without allowing a right of reply to those working in the industry.

Mr. Borooff's proposal is that if a newspaper wants publicly to attack a section of its work force, it should be prepared to delay that attack for 24 hours to ensure that an official of the union—not a shop floor representative, but the general secretary—should be invited to reply if he wishes. It would give him an opportunity to have his view alongside any statement put forward in an editorial. It would also help to cool things down. To people of another generation, this proposal would be something that they would wish to accept, but in a modern newspaper world it is at least a creative way out of the dilemma. Those who reject the suggestion will have to offer some alternative.

I was impressed with the way in which the right hon. Member for Lowestoft looked seriously at some of these difficulties, within the industry rather than going in for the bashing of unions and existing procedures.

The third point that is central to our analysis is the shadow and fear of new technology. So far, only one newspaper, the Daily Mirror, has moved towards the introduction of this new technology. It has been able to do so only because it took itself out of the straitjacket imposed by the NPA in order to be able to negotiate with the unions.

New printing technology means a total revolution in the organisation of newspaper printing, which cuts right across all traditional printing skills, enabling journalists to put their copy straight on to machines and "composing", in a very new form, to be done by anyone who can operate an ordinary typewriter. It is no wonder that craftsmen of the print unions are reacting fearfully to this new technology. Those who imagine that this is just an extension of the original typesetting and the original form of composition do not understand the industry.

It was said earlier that we have had new technologies and techniques in other industries without the same degree of reaction. However, the newspaper industry is a volatile industry where we are dealing with a considerable craft and long-established practices with long apprenticeships—my apprenticeship as a compositor lasted seven years. The industry has, on one side, a considerable craft content and, on the other, a very large number of casual workers. This mixture at the place of work in itself creates certain problems and demarcation difficulties.

It is because it is one of the oldest crafts and its practitioners take considerable pride in it—a pride that I share—that some of the problems of new technology cannnot be tackled easily. Natural wastage over the years will take care of reduced manning, retraining will ensure employment for those who remain, but nothing can replace a man's pride in his craft. This goes to the root of the technology.

The technology can be introduced and made to work and this is shown by the experience of the Mirror group, which is gradually introducing it into all its operations with the co-operation of the unions concerned. The experience of the United States—not always a good experience—shows what is possible with the new equipment. About 70 American newspapers already use di-litho added to the existing web-offset plants.

There are extremists on the shop floor who will want to make the work of both management and the trade union leadership rather difficult as they try to bring about some of the successes in Fleet Street that we anticipate, but this is a matter for the trade unions to sort out for themselves. I believe that they are serious in their attempts to do so.

It would be unrealistic to expect this industry to be free of such extremists who seek to do damage wherever they are, but even these can be reduced if newspaper management gets down to the job of managing and starts to relate to its work force, rather than trying to solve every dispute with the cheque book, which was certainly the pattern a few years ago and is not likely to have changed much in the last two or three years.

Curiously enough, none of the Royal Commissions and working parties that have examined the industry has given sufficient attention to the problem of industrial relations. There are few solutions which we shall be able to offer to Fleet Street tonight, but it would be wrong for anyone in the newspaper industry to imagine that the House did not care or was not sufficiently anxious about the prospects for its future.

I offer these comments in a brief manner because of lack of time. The Tunes, in a fine editorial today, said: The central flaw in the system is not the malevolence of individuals or their incompetence. It is that the power to stop the papers has been split up into far too large a number of separate units. It would be possible to survive if trade union power were exercised either through whole unions and so on. This is an accurate description of the industrial relations scene and therefore one possible solution is the merging of trade unions. This is already going on at a pace. Comparing the number of unions in the printing industry today with the number 30 years ago, and one can see dramatic reduction in numbers. Yet the process cannot be rushed and we have had experiences where it has gone badly, but it is one of the positive ways in which the unions and the men will come to terms with some of the demarcation disputes. Mergers within the trade union movement are a powerful influence.

Secondly, we have a right to say to managements that we expect greater competence and communication from them within their works. We do not look kindly on the way in which the competitiveness and the indifference to the industry have grown up over the last few years.

Finally, the "Programme for Action" is the basis for negotiation. It has been referred to by both Front Bench speakers. The programme shows how various problems have been tackled. The question of casualisation is a great dilemma. The whole basis of Saturday night and Sunday morning printing is tied up with casualisation. It was the problem of The Observer last weekend. It will be the problem for other Sunday newspapers. One solution suggested by the working party of trade union leaders and management was that there should be a register of bona fide casuals wholly employed on a national newspaper, and that they should determine the levels of the manning.

There is hope for Fleet Street and within the context of ensuring the survival of newspapers and a wide ranging series of newspapers. The problems that we have seen over the last few months will not simply go away if any one of the parties believes that it has all the answers and is wholly correct.

I shall try to be as fair as I can in mentioning some of the dilemmas. Just as the unions are beginning, through their senior officials, to take responsibility for what goes on through the work force, so management must do the same. It is a question not of being firm but of indicating good intentions for a period of time.

Some Opposition Members do not wish to see too close an involvement by the Department of Employment. I should welcome the interest of the Secretary of State and his successors in this matter. The Secretary of State has a critical responsibility. I hope that his colleague will be more positive about the dispute than was perhaps possible earlier.

It would be wrong and we should be failing in our responsibility if we did not hear from the Front Bench about The Observer dispute. This paper could go under. Many of us have fought for it. It would be a mistake if, because of protocol, we did no more than offer words of encouragement. The House tonight should say strongly to both sides of the industry that they must ensure that The Observer appears on Sunday.

5.51 p.m.

Mr. Julian Critchley (Aldershot)

Why is the freedom of the Press so important? It is not because our newspapers invariably are literate, scrupulous and wise, save, conceivably when the hon. Member for Basildon (Mr. Moonman) and myself occasionally write for them. They are not. It is because newspapers exist to defend not themselves but the freedom of others.

Overseas, the freedom of the Press is a rarity. Less than one-fifth of States today have even the limited political freedom of the England of William and Mary. The majority of countries are single-party States in which the Press is more or less muzzled. At home, the freedom of the Press is threatened either by economic factors or by politics.

Mr. Moss Evans, who, for good or ill, is likely to be with us for some time, has called for a system of operators' licences for newspapers, monitored by a standing commission with wide powers. It is worth examining Mr. Moss Evans's proposals.

Besides issuing licences to publish, which were abolished in 1685—which perhaps makes Mr. Moss Evans the greatest reactionary in British politics—he would give his commission the following additional powers: to check ownership and control; to advise the Government on subsidies; to establish a finance corporation in order to subsidise new entrants such as the trade unions; to receive all advertising revenues, subtract a levy and then allocate moneys around the Press; and to control the proportion of advertising to editorial content.

That is not all. The commission which Mr. Moss Evans hankers after would replace the Press Council and adjudicate upon complaints. It would have the power to take full remedial action necessary to correct any misleading information and to redress any lack of balance. There woud also be a committee of employers and trade unionists charged with ensuring good industrial relations. This would mean the full recognition of trades union rights at all levels. That, presumably, means the NUJ's closed shop.

The implications of so radical a change were a future majority Labour Government to prove sympathetic are profoundly disturbing. It must mean at best a neutered Press which resembles the BBC and the ITV in that it could not take a view, or, at worst, a union-controlled Press.

A neutral television is acceptable precisely because we have an unfettered Press. An officially licensed Press such as that advocated by Mr. Moss Evans would be neutral because it would have lost its most important role—that of the scrutiny of what is happening in our country today.

Mr. Christopher Price (Lewisham, West)

Is the hon. Member really saying that our national newspapers today are more efficient at scrutinising than the documentary and other programmes broadcast by the BBC and ITV?

Mr. Critchley

That is an interesting question which we could debate as a separate subject. The Times and The Sunday Times would no doubt assert that their inside columns are as good. A debate could go on indefinitely.

Mr. Moss Evans is not the only emasculator. A year or two ago, the Labour Party published a document called "The People and the Media". It has not yet been forgotten. Its main idea was that newspapers and broadcasters should be controlled by committees representing their editorial and production staffs and a number of interests such as the unions, the CBI and the main political parties. That might appear to be fine, but it would mean that newspapers and broadcasters would be controlled by the very people they should be reporting and discussing.

There are other threats to the freedom of the British Press. There is the greed of the Fleet Street unions, and the print unions in particular, with their insistence on overmanning and inflated wages, on the one hand, and the ambition of the National Union of Journalists to bring about a closed shop.

The print unions and their members, whose loyalty is not to their newspapers but to their unions, workshops and chapels, have increased the burdens on national newspapers, most of which run at a loss. They have done that by insisting on higher manning levels than those required outside London and on exorbitant rates of pay. For example, on the Daily Express there are those who earn more than £300 for a less than a 30-hour week. No one on the Daily Express earns less than £140 a week. Such lavishness owes nothing to the laws of supply and demand. Entry to a Fleet Street union is a much-sought-after privilege.

Most union leaders have lost control over their unions. It would be an obvious advantage if there were one union and not seven, but it will be years before that is achieved. As we have seen, the really important unit is at house level—the chapel. The Times, for example, has 53 units, all of which are separate negotiating bodies.

How have the print workers achieved their powers? As Mr. David Astor has written, they have done so by the threat and use of sabotage". Of that there can be no doubt. The NUJ, encouraged by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Act is striving to achieve a closed shop, so far, thank God, without much success.

Is journalism just another industrial activity such as mining and engineering? Surely not. Journalism really belongs to politics and literature. Should there be a writers' union, as there is in the Soviet Union? The idea should be abhorrent to us. Should there be a politicians' union to which all parliamentary candidates should belong? The idea is obnoxious to any democrat.

Why, then, should there be a union of writers and journalists with the sole right to issue a licence to print and which would be the only body able to allow its members access to the public prints? The moderates of the NUJ say that they seek a closed shop to raise pay. They see the print unions and, not unreasonably, they are jealous. But there are extremists within the NUJ who would restrict writers' freedom to write and to comment.

They say that nothing should be written to offend the trade unions. They would discriminate against the National Front but not against the Socialist Workers' Party. Would there not be all sorts of dangers if all journalists were obliged to belong to the TUC, which is affiliated to the Labour movement and which has become to all intents the third House of Parliament?

The closed shop is, according to one's point of view, either a denial of personal freedom or a legitimat