THE INDUSTRIAL SITUATION

Viscount AMORY

My Lords, I feel it is a very great privilege that it falls to me to be the first to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Smith, on his impressive and compassionate maiden speech. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, is, as I think everyone knows, a brilliant former President of the Royal College of Physicians.

Viscount AMORY

Surgeons. I do apologise particularly because, as the noble Lord knows, I have a very good reason to know that fact. He is also, if I may say so, a man of great modesty and charm. We shall look forward to his most valuable contributions to our future debates. What a pleasure it was, too, to listen to the moving appeal which the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury made to us just now.

I would like to start, if I may, by saying that I thought the speech my noble friend Lord Carrington made was marked by that deep sense of responsibility that we all knew it would have, and I think the noble Lord the Leader of the House paid that tribute to him. We have had a series of debates on various aspects of industry over the last 12 months. I think the aspect that is in our thoughts today is the use of power. In my intervention today I want to go on record with two statements and to make one suggestion.

My first proposition is that when power is being used by a section of the nation to the manifest damage of the community at large it is bound to amount to an issue for Parliament, though not necessarily a Party political one. It is not a problem that can be left, for instance, to free collective bargaining without any ground rules, the Government of the day merely standing on the sidelines watching. Perhaps at that moment I would like to clear 1596 one thing out of the way; what I have said does not mean that I am in favour of a rigid across-the-board national incomes percentage. I had intended to suggest that I did not feel that Ministers had yet insisted enough on the right of pickets to use persuasion only and not intimidation or force. It seems that under pressure Ministers are now rather belatedly applying their minds to that problem, from the Statement we have just heard. My second proposition is that the increase in real earnings during 1978, to which the noble Lord the Leader of the House referred in his speech, the increase which has been enjoyed during the past year, has been financed and is being financed by our temporary windfall from North Sea oil and by borrowing. We are still subsidising our own consumption.

The traditional attitude of our trade unions when legal reforms are mentioned—I do not want to say it disrespectfully—is a kind of "Hands off! Leave this to us. We the trade unions will see to matters of reform, if they are needed, ourselves." Mr. Gormley has recently said, "Trust us". But year after year—I nearly said decade after decade—this has been the answer of the trade unions, and no reforms come forward from them. How long is the nation expected to wait? This attitude would not be so unreasonable if it was not that our trade unions, unlike those in most other countries, have a statutorily privileged position with special advantages not available to other citizens which enable them, sadly, to breach agreements sometimes with impunity, and have other immunities which increase their power enormously. These advantages were, of course, deliberately given to them in days when they were relatively weak and the balance of power needed correction. Today the situation is precisely reversed. The big battalions wield a power against the rest of the community which urgently calls out for correction. So my proposition is that it will be indeed an astonishing thing if our trade union structure of power is so perfect that no reforms are necessary in the interests of the nation at large.

In recent years Governments, one of each of the main Parties, have set out to tackle this problem, and each has been repulsed by the practical resistance of trades union power. Here I will freely 1597 admit that, while I believe that the aims and provisions of the Conservative Industrial Relations Act were scrupulously fair, in its anxiety to protect all legitimate interests, including those of the trade unions, it became rather a horror of legalistic complication. I would like to commend, if I may, the speech of my noble friend Lord Carr of Hadley, made in our debate last week initiated by my noble friend Lord Trenchard. My noble friend Lord Carr, in referring to the chaos today in the trade union field, said that, in the national interest there must be rules of conduct; whether they are rules introduced by statute or by voluntary agreement can be discussed, but when agreed they must be adhered to". In those rules I think it is inevitable that the law will have some part to play, though I am all for keeping the intervention of the law to the minimum. So my proposition is that both political Parties will have to recognise this over the years immediately ahead. If we think otherwise we shall be burying our heads in the sand.

I select one statistic to illustrate the scale on which we are tearing ourselves apart. One company, ICI, has reported that since the start of these damaging stoppages it has been exporting £2 million a day less; it has been exporting £1 million a day instead of the £3 million which it was exporting normally before the start of the stoppage. Imagine those effects spread over the whole of our export effort. ICI's production, I understand, is already down to about 60 per cent. of normal, with deliveries to customers down to about one-third of normal. If my noble friend Lord Polwarth had not been attending a board meeting of that company this afternoon he would, I know, have wished to give your Lordships this information himself.

There very well may be a very sharp backlash on the part of the long-suffering public to some of these present goings-on, I fear. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton (I have lost my spectacles so I cannot see whether he is present; I think he is) speaking in our debate last Wednesday said that he had never known a time when the TUC was so weak as it is today. The noble Lord speaks with great experience and authority. The noble Lord, Lord Lee of Newton, also made a notable contribution to that debate, again speaking from long experience at first hand.

1598 The noble Lord stated that in his opinion there is today a complete divorce between power and responsibility in the trade union movement. That divorce between power and responsibility is, I think, the type of thing that the most reverend Primate was talking to us about a moment ago. The noble Lord, Lord Lee of Newton, called for a recourse to the principle of arbitration. I agree with his view on that matter.

The noble Lord, Lord Brown, has a solution in the shape of a national differentials council. I have always respected the ideas of the noble Lord, Lord Brown, because he has for many years applied many of them successfully in his own company. I wish I could persuade myself that his scheme for a national differentials council is practical, but I cannot do so. I suppose that what we are likely to see is the recognition of more special cases in which either permanent indexation or some form of comparability, decided by statutory bodies, will be devised. The difficulty with both ideas, of course, is that the number of special cases will grow and it is difficult to know where to stop. If indexation is generally adopted, will not that put paid to any chance we have of halting or reversing inflation?

I now come to my suggestion. There is one practice which today is unfashionable, in disrepute and consequently seldom used. I am referring to the principle of true arbitration—the practice by which when two individuals or two authorities cannot agree they get a third, in whose judgment they have confidence, to decide the issue, for them. In the principle of true arbitration the two parties agree in advance to accept the decision. Today, I believe that the two quite separate principles of arbitration and conciliation have somehow become hopelessly confused. In my view the Department of Employment and ACAS are both guilty in that respect. It is increasingly the case that when an arbitrator is proposed, it is really meant that a conciliator should be proposed. So it is expected that an arbitrator should either split the difference or propose a solution which he knows will be acceptable to both sides. That is not arbitration: it is conciliation, a process valuable indeed in itself, but different. The essence of true arbitration is that both sides accept the result as binding in advance.

1599 The principle of arbitration and the acceptance of the judgment of a third party is as old as ancient Greece, or older. I am not a classical scholar—perhaps my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone who is sitting immediately in front of me will indicate by nodding his head whether what I am saying is correct—but I have been told that in ancient Greece arbitrators had to choose between the cases put forward by each side and could not plump for a decision in-between. The result, it was claimed, was to give both sides an incentive to put forward a reasonable claim in the hope that it would be more likely to be accepted by the arbitrator. My suggestion is that we are not likely to emerge from our present difficult disputes until somehow or other we can restore and bring back into use true arbitration.

I still look forward to the day—however far ahead it may be—when the electorate will look back and feel that some of our current industrial practices are incredibly crude and utterly opposed to common-sense. Far too often today the strike weapon is used not as an ultimate resort when all else has failed, but almost as the opening move in a campaign against the public. If there are manned unidentified flying objects I am sure that a crew landing in the United Kingdom at present would come to the conclusion that we are slightly mad.

The strange thing is that, in spite of our present dissensions and losses of temper over, for instance, picketing, I do not believe that there is any spirit of deep bitterness running through our society. If only there could be a national appreciation of the extent to which we are tearing ourselves apart and rendering unattainable those aspirations for more employment and a more secure standard of living, and a realisation that the remedies are entirely within our own grasp, there would, I am convinced, be an insistence on the part of public opinion that old, out-of-date weapons and habits be laid aside and common sense solutions sought to our current suicidal procedures. Our friends in other countries find many of our procedures out of date and out of keeping with our national character, too, and they are right. It is grand when one can feel that our spirit of national cooperation is equal to the events which 1600 confront us. So often in days gone past that has been the case. It is that spirit of co-operation, which has stood us in such good stead in past crises, which I pray we may recover.

Lord SHINWELL

My Lords, in ordinary circumstances I would have approached the subject of this debate with my customary confidence, albeit hat confidence has, in recent weeks, because of recent events, been much eroded. I have heard nothing from any of the noble Lords who have contributed to the debate this afternoon to restore my confidence and ensure that some solution to the problem or problems that confront our country is likely to be found in the foreseeable future. I am all the more apprehensive about this debate because, if noble Lords will consult the list of speakers, they will discover that the noble Lord who is to follow me is my noble friend Lord George-Brown. I would rather it had been the other way round, because I should not be at all surprised if he, being a natural critic (I say "natural" not meaning the reverse of artificial; he was born a critic and so he has remained) were to argue against some of my propositions or even my comments. However, there it is. I did not arrange it and we have to make the best of the circumstances.

Lord GEORGE-BROWN

My Lords, I am ready to switch.

Lord SHINWELL

My Lords, I confess also that I am grievously disappointed with the debate. I shall take up the theme initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who informed us at the outset of the debate that, as in the past in frequent debates of a like character, we have sought to analyse, but have failed to produce a solution. There have also been some familiar repetitive comments. For example, the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, who spoke from the Liberal Benches, suggested, almost as if it were an original concept, that the Parties might come together to talk about the problem. If I may say so—and I speak with the utmost respect—the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a most moving appeal based on the very highest moral concepts, also suggested that. 1601 However, the most reverend Primate does not frequently take part in our debates—I am not complaining about that—and he may not be aware that on more than one occasion this suggestion has been presented to your Lordships' House.

When I came to your Lordships' House in 1970 Mr. Heath had become Prime Minister. We were then confronted by problems; indeed, we have been faced by problems for many long years past. At the time I suggested that it might help if Mr. Heath were to consult Mr. Wilson, who was then Leader of the Opposition, and Mr. Thorpe, the Leader of the Liberal Party, and invite some financial pundits from the City of London, or from the universities and other scholastic institutions, to talk about the problems, to diagnose the complaints and then to seek an approach to a solution of our problems. My idea, which I presented to your Lordships' House and which is on record in the pages of Hansard, was rejected.

Later, when Mr. Wilson became Prime Minister I repeated the suggestion that he should approach the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Liberal Party, et cetera, with a view to reaching an understanding of what was wrong with our country and what the fundamental problems were, in the hope—and I would put it no higher than this at any time, nor did I ever do so—that we might make an approach to a solution. Again, it was rejected. It has been repeated this afternoon. Indeed, the Liberal Party has gone further than suggesting a meeting of Parties. It has suggested something in the nature of a coalition—a congregation—of the three Parties. Of course, from a Liberal standpoint that is very desirable; it would revive interest in the Liberal Party. Although the Liberals would be unlikely to form a Government, they might be able to act as a catalyst for the two major Parties. That I reject. I do not believe that a coalition can solve our problems. However, I will add—and I make no bones about it—that I do not believe that any one-Party Government in the United Kingdom in the foreseeable future can solve our problems. For they are not our problems alone; they are world problems, and many countries suffer from the same complaints.

1602 I do not want to proceed further along those lines, but rather to come to what I might call the solar plexus of this problem; in other words, what is it all about? However, I want to digress for a moment in order to refer to the speech of my noble friend the Leader of the House. He stated the facts and laid them before us. There they are; unpalatable as they are, they are the truth and nothing but the truth. They are not his fault. He is as much the victim of circumstance as any of us. But he failed to provide a solution and all the time he was speaking, particularly towards the end of his speech, I almost felt like getting up and, according to a tradition of the House, asking whether I could put a question to the speaker and so ask him "Now that you have told us about the facts, what do you propose to do?". But as I did not ask the question then, I shall ask it now.

What have we had this afternoon? The most reverend Primate in his admirable speech, based on high moral concepts and the highest possible standard, made an appeal. So did the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. It seemed to me just now that the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, was trying to do the same by offering arbitration. If I have time, I shall come to that and dispose of it very rapidly. I understand the sentiment—the symbolism of it all; to make an appeal: Why are you not reasonable men? Do you realise, as the noble Lord, Lord Smith, told us, that people are suffering because of the heartless, intolerable, despicable action or inaction of our own people—Britons? Perhaps I could use the term which was used by the most reverend Primate "and Christians" also. What is the use of your appeal? Appeal as you like.

I turn to something else that is even more topical. We have heard about the law of picketing. Of course we prosecute because of an alleged criminal action, but it takes weeks and weeks before the case is dealt with. In the meantime, what happens? If a person takes civil action, it takes even longer to come before the courts. What is the use of it? That will not do.

Let us deal with the disputes. I shall take one as an example to see whether an appeal would be of any value. I say this as earnestly and as sincerely as I can, 1603 because I mean what I say. I shall take the dispute between the two railway unions. Can noble Lords imagine anything more ludicrous or more irrelevant? It has been going on for 70 years or more. At one time I was chairman of the Glasgow Trades Council, which was then even more influential than the British Trades Union Congress. We dealt with demarcation problems, and often I had to decide from the Chair as between the local people's delegate and the man from the NUR. This dispute has been going on all those years. How are we going to solve it now?—by an appeal? I wish we could. It appears to be almost insane that they should be quarrelling with each other.

What is the dispute about? It is about a bonus for drivers of high-speed trains which, they say, should be paid to all the drivers. So far as I am concerned, they can all have the bonus, and I am sure that that would represent the opinion of every Member of your Lordships' House. Why make any distinction between a driver of a high-speed train and a driver who has to bring in the commuters half-a-dozen times a day and take them back half-a-dozen times a day throughout the network that our railways provide, with all the strain involved?

Why not solve it? Make an appeal to them; knock their heads together. That is what ought to be done, and it ought to be done by Len Murray and the TUC General Council, and no nonsense about it. They have got to speak out. I am not saying this because I am against trade unionism. Far from it. I know the whole history of it. I was involved. I know that Winston Churchill, on 30th May, 1911—perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, is aware of this—actually attacked the Judiciary because of their attitude about the trade unions. It is on the record. It is no use challenging me. I know. That is what he did. Even Churchill did not like what was going on. However, the trade unions became legalised bodies. They have been so all the time.

Now I come to the real point—I knew I would come to it some time. It is this: what is the crux of the problem? The Prime Minister made his decision, no doubt advised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Chief Secretary, and 1604 some of the people in the City of London, and the economists—where are they?—who possess all the knowledge. And look at our problems, and the lack of a solution. What was the problem? The problem was how are we to deal with inflation. This inflation has been going on ever since I was born. All the time. I remember when I worked for thirty shillings a week, then I got £2, and then it went up and up, and I came to the other place and got £8, and so on. All the time prices were going up and up, and they are still going up, and they will go up even more as a result of what is happening at the present time.

This brings me to a point that ought to be made. What started the trouble first of all was the declaration by the Prime Minister on behalf of the Government that so far as wage settlements are concerned they must be based on a 5 per cent. arrangement. That was dealt with by the Ford Company and the transport workers' union. The transport workers' union had an agreement with the Ford people. It had not expired. It was likely to be in operation for another four weeks, but they anticipated all that and decided to strike and made it official. The Ford people were anxious to settle. They did not want to lose any money. They were making vast profits and wanted to continue; and who would blame them for that? The result was that the Ford workers got 17 per cent.

Is it not natural that other people in the country would like to follow suit? If you can go on strike backed by the union making it official, 14 per cent. would not be enough. If the Ford workers can get 17 per cent., why cannot we? The lorry drivers, what do they want? There are some who want 28 per cent. I understand that the miners are going to demand 40 per cent. It is very natural. It all started over the Ford business.

What should have been done before any declaration was made about 5 per cent., with perhaps some ancillary payments associated with productivity and so on, is this: it should have been discussed over and over again with the trade union people. This was not done. There was some discussion with the TUC, but many of the trade union people were never consulted. I am not suggesting that there should have been a secret ballot. 1605 They talk about democracy in the trade union movement, but it cannot be said that the general body of workers was consulted about what a pay settlement should be.

Now what should be done? I end by putting forward a constructive proposition, which I have ventured to put before. Some weeks ago we had a debate something like this debate, and I produced a Cabinet paper. I held it up. It was a secret paper, but after all 30 years had expired so I could disclose its contents. What was the title of the paper? It was, A National Wage Policy. It was submitted by the Minister of Fuel and Power, myself, in the year 1946 to the Cabinet, and rejected. What did it provide for? It provided for the creation of an economic council of a more or less independent character—members of the various Parties; people of the City of London, et cetera. I need not go into details. They were to sit down and examine the nature of the problem: prices, exports, imports, capital payments, deficits, revenue, all the rest of it. Having done so, they were to recommend what they thought was a reasonable wage policy, including a minimum wage policy, in order to deal with the people who are now going to go on selected strike and who are obviously paid on too low a level. That was done, but rejected. I suggest that it ought to be revived.

I make a proposition to the leaders of the Parties. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has returned to the Chamber; and I am bound to say that I thought his speech very reasonable. I would not say I agreed with every word in it, but it was very reasonable indeed, and certainly much more satisfactory than some of the speeches of Mrs. Thatcher. The last thing I would do is say a wrong word about the lady. I indulge in no criticism at all, but I am bound to say that some of the implications of some of her recent speeches are quite the reverse of what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said this afternoon. He asked for a consensus, not a confrontation. There is no doubt about it, she prefers a confrontation. She means by that: have a confrontation, and out go the Labour Party. I can quite understand this. Why should she not have an ambition of that character? Everybody has ambitions. She has hers.

1606 I should like this sort of appeal from your Lordships' House. I should like it tonight. We unanimously, leaving out the details and criticising nobody, along the lines of the noble Lord, Lord Smith, this evening—and this is not necessarily confined to hospitals and so on but is dealing with the whole situation—condemn what is illegal; condemn what we believe to be intolerable. That is what we ought to do, and let that go out to the country. As it is, what is going out? Do you think that all these speeches, or any of them, will be reported, tomorrow morning in the Press? Not at all. We make no impact.

We have to make an impact. We have to see that our views are made known, if we believe them to be right. I believe that what the most reverend Primate said was right, and what the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said was right, and what the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said was right, with some exceptions, for which of course I forgive him. Let your Lordships' House say to the country, if it is not done in another place, "Let us put a stop to this intolerable nonsense which is ruining our country". Let us do that. That would be worth while. Then we would not require to have these frequent debates about economic policy with all the economists expressing their views, and leaving it at that. That is the sort of thing we want. Unless we are prepared to do something like that, then this debate is not worth while. I use an expression I used many years ago, for which I got into trouble—I may get into trouble again—unless we do that, then the debate tonight is not worth a tinker's cuss.

Lord GEORGE-BROWN

My Lords, I wish to take a slightly different line from that which has generally been taken, not because I disagree with much of what I have heard—even from the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell—and not because I hesitate about disturbing what on the whole has been a fairly wide convergence of view. However, as I take a rather different point of view and as I have written and spoken about it outside the House, it is only proper that I should say it before noble Lords today.

In my view, the Government have gone wrong from the beginning, as have some 1607 noble Lords today, because we have not faced one essential issue; namely, that there is not a conflict with the executive officers of the national trade unions. This is different from other situations. The leaders of the trade unions—I am not apportioning blame because I do not wish to spoil the effect of what I am saying; you may or may not hold them responsible for it—are being as effectively bypassed as the Government themselves are being bypassed. We have had two or three weeks of misery because there still exists the view in people's minds, a view that has been expressed today, that a rational appeal can be made to rational people when in fact it is not the rational people who are leading the campaign today or who are destablising our society. I believe the Government could have acted more quickly, and would act now, if we could get that clearly into the minds of Ministers.

There is an issue now behind the immediate issue; and that is why I cannot agree with the noble Lord who said that the great thing is to get the strikers back to work. Nor do I agree with those, with respect to Lord Shinwell, who have said we must go for a consensus and not have a confrontation. The issue behind the issue is that there are organised groups of people inside the trade union movement, or cloaking themselves with it, who are using industrial action for the political coercion of the Government and the political ransoming of our society.

They are not so much concerned with the level of wages; it is a useful way to put it, but they know only too well the realities of the tax structure at present and what it does to increases in wages. They are concerned with the destruction, certainly the destabilisation, of society. In my view, the Government must be pressed by their friends—among whom I still, on the whole, like to count myself, although I gather they are not always sure about that—and by others (and the Opposition must be pressed, because if they were to inherit the situation in a couple of months time, it is important they should be clear about the issue they would be tackling) on this question, about which the trade union movement has at different phases of its history taken different positions. I refer to the question of the right to use industrial 1608 action for a political purpose; namely the coercion, the replacement, of the elected Government of the day.

The reason why I do not have the instinctive feeling I have had in times of war and peace—the feeling that however madly we behave and however stupidly we mess things up, everything will come right on the day—is because I feel that these people, whoever they are and from wherever they get their direction (and I believe the worldwide thing about the guerillas, the Red Brigades, the Palestinian organisation, the transfer of men, money, advice and knowhow across national borders and all sorts of terrorist groups; it all has a connection) are being allowed in this country to get away with it while we foolishly have a pillow fight with the trade union leaders who are themselves not in a position to deal with it.

Up to 1926—I hate to display how accurately my white hairs give the game away—the trade union movement, on the whole, tended to support the idea that industrial action was a justifiable weapon to achieve political ends. One of the ironies of the situation was that the great Mr. Bevin, who is now upheld by many of my Conservative friends as a great pillar of responsibility, was until 1926 the great leader of this view. He was the one, after all, who used industrial action to stop the "Jolly George" taking armaments to Russia because he disapproved of the political policy of the Government and wanted to replace the British Government with a Government rather similar to the one he thought was in Russia. It was the great Mr. Bevin who set up the soldiers' and workers' councils.

After 1926 and after the General Strike that attitude changed. Mr. Bevin, Walter Citrine, as he then was, and Pugh were the ones who led the change, and from then on the trade union movement has, until very recently, always set its face against the use in any circumstances of industrial action for such political purposes. It has recently changed, or the leaders have allowed it to appear to change, and it is because of that that the Government have been trying to hold the hand of the TUC General Council in a period when the General Council has not been willing to stand firmly by the change of attitude on the part of the TUC and of the trade unions which took place after 1926.

1609 Every Labour leader (be he Prime Minister, Minister or leader in Opposition) from MacDonald to Attlee to Morrison to Nye Bevan as well as Ernest Bevin, to Gaitskell and even to Sir Harold Wilson and Mrs. Castle in 1969—right the way through from Ramsay MacDonald to now—has seen this situation when it was arising and has condemned it and acted against it. I say with a very heavy heart to my noble friend the Leader of the House—my friend in every sense as well as in the formal sense in this House—that unhappily the present Prime Minister is the first Labour leader who has failed from the beginning to say this, and until the Government are willing to see it and say, "We are back with the view that this is not a proper use of industrial processes and we draw the conclusion from that that we must beat it," a trade unionist like myself, a grassroots Labour man of half a century, must swallow hard.

Those who trained me did not duck it, so I do not think I should. If this is the case, then to sustain a democracy to sustain a Labour movement, we must say, "Unless it is stopped, it will be beaten". If we can say that, then we can proceed to the question of what we have to do to meet it? We have waited for a fortnight or three weeks to give the trade union leaders every opportunity to deal with the situation, but they have not done so, for the reason I have just given. Since the deaths of Deakin, Lawther, and Williamson and the end of an era, with the advent perhaps of Frank Cousins, which could be said almost to date it, and following the successive changes of trade union leadership from then onwards, the so-called democracy to the grass roots—democratic leadership from the shop stewards—has been the order of the day.

What those leaders did not realise was that in elevating what sounded like a major defensible democratic principle, they were in fact handing over their own power and their own responsibility to mob rule. Whatever the modern Left may be, it is no longer what we knew as youngsters, when we could identify King Street and the Communist Party, and Mr Ramelson, and the Communist industrial organisation in Coventry; it is not that any more. The Left finds it so easy to infiltrate trade union branches and Labour Party wards, and those leaders 1610 were handing over democratic power to an undemocratic base. They were not increasing democracy. They were in fact destroying it, and with it went their own power and their own authority.

Has anybody ever seen a more pathetic picture than that the other day of the elegant David Basnett and the suitably slightly scruffy Alan Fisher pretending to lead the march of the National Union of Public Employees and the other public service workers, which included every bunch of rag, tag and bobtail in the business? They were not leading it, they were running like mad to get in front, like the French general of the army which had created itself behind him.

If I am right about this—and, frankly, I believe that I am—then I must turn to a short action list of what in the last two or three weeks I would have been doing (and I use the words seriously) had I had the privilege of being a leading Minister in this Government as I did in the previous one, and what I believe now should be done. I do not find trade unionists abusing me in the streets for saying these things. I do not find them spitting at me, or calling me nasty names. They come up to me and say, "George, of course you are bloody right".

First on my list is the declaration of a state of emergency. If such a declaration were only a symbolic act, and if it conferred no additional powers—which is not true—it is nevertheless necessary for that purpose. We are trying to arouse the country to a recognition that we are fighting an attack from within on our democratic liberties. One does not do that by saying, "But of course it is not an emergency". You have to show what the situation is. Can anyone imagine Bevin, or any of our great leaders—let us leave out Sir Winston Churchill—saying, "It's not an emergency, but, boys, it's very serious"? One's first act is the declaration of a state of emergency. Actually I think that that would then give one greater power. I see that the Scottish lawyer shakes his head, but as between the two of us I have been engaged in these kind of situations rather more than he has. I ask him to think rather carefully before he dismisses the point so lightly.

Secondly, one takes the powers, all the powers, and creates the state of public 1611 mind. Next is the discussion for which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, called and the clarification of the role of the police and the actions which are to be taken with pickets. I do not get myself into the argument about primary and secondary picketing. I think it is a silly argument. I have myself been arrested for picketing because I stood on the running-board of a lorry, and that was held to be obstruction. I said that I was only trying to persuade the bloke—

Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE

You were taking a ride.

Lord GEORGE-BROWN

I said that I was only trying to persuade the bloke, but they said, "No, you are obstructing him in going through".

What is the use of the Solicitor-General for Scotland telling us today—as only a lawyer could, whereas an ordinary, working-class trade unionist knows how damn silly it is that the lorry driver does not have to stop; he can drive through? What happens if he then knocks the bloke over? What were we told when this was thought to have happened somewhere? We were told that the police would be making a rigorous inquiry involving the lorry driver. The police have got to enforce the law. If the law is as the Solicitor-General said it was, and as it was when I was arrested for breaking it years ago, then the police should do what they did to me down in East London: arrest and charge. Pickets, whether they be primary or secondary, must return to carrying out their proper function, which is to persuade, if the bloke is willing to be persuaded. I understand that one does not obstruct the police, but there are ways and means of doing these things without hurting amour propre. It must be made clear that the Government will stand behind the chief constables and the police forces.

Incidentally, I see that the Prime Minister said—I think it was yesterday, when I was in the other House—that he would walk across a picket line. I want to make a serious offer. If he and those Ministers who distinguished themselves so much on the Grunwick picket line will form a team to lead a convoy of lorries through the dock gates in London, or 1612 anywhere else, tomorrow morning, then I should be very happy to be there with them, and lead the lorries through. It needs some dramatic action of that kind.

Thirdly, the Government should decide—and had I been a Minister I would have done—on the degree of active use made of the Armed Forces. I would have decided where I was going to use them, and I would by now, I think, have been using them. By that means alone, if one picks the case, it would be found that other people, such as the lorry drivers who have been ambling down the M6, would be ambling through the dock gates, which would be much more to the point. If there were not enough soldiers, sailors or airmen in this country, more would have to be brought back from the Continent. I cannot see much point in pretending to deter the invader from the front door when the citadel is already being taken from the rear. If more Armed Forces are needed, they temporarily will have to be brought back here; and I would have been doing that.

Fourthly, there should be active encouragement of volunteer sources who are willing, if directed, and guided to accept responsibility to do things, to make deliveries and to maintain services. This is a para-revolutionary situation. Yes, it is, with great respect to the noble and learned Solicitor-General. There is an attempt here to take over. Why does he think that every single basic service in the country is being attacked? Over the last six or nine months the schools, the hospitals, the water and sewerage services, the gritting of the roads, have all been affected. What they are after is not the wages of a few people. What they are doing is to show that at any one time, if they did so in a co-ordinated way, they could stop the whole of our services, as they have stopped them in Persia, as I saw the other week; and as they have been stopped in other countries. You bring a society down that way. That is what they are trying to do, whatever way they are doing it; whether in the way I think they are doing it, or in the way which the Solicitor-General seems to prefer. The fact is that they should not be allowed to do it, and we have to break it now.

There should already have been two meetings, one of the senior Ministers 1613 with the General Council and the other of the Prime Minister with the full national executives of the trade unions—not the national officers only; the national executives. It has been done before; we took the Central Hall for the purpose. It had a great effect under a previous General Secretary, George Woodcock. It should have been done now. The purpose is not a waffly appeal; the purpose is not a new concordat; the purpose is to set before them the seriousness of the situation and the determination of the Government to deal with it by whatever means necessary, preferably with their support—and I believe you would get their support, because one of the by-winds of what I am suggesting is that you would be returning power and responsibility to them. You would be giving them back their authority if you beat the groups behind them. They cannot take it back for themselves; that is the tragic situation at the moment. Let us just face it: there is no general secretary in the public works sector, where there are six or seven unions fighting for the membership, who dares be behind COHSE, NUPE or ASTMS, or whichever is the most militant of the unions. David Basnett knows the score as well as any one of us does. So let us have those meetings: we should have had them already.

Then, we should draft legislation quickly, if it has not already been drafted, to deal with the two major pieces of legislation which went wrong. With all the sophistries of the Solicitor-General, please believe me: they did go wrong, and they are the source of all the power that these people behind the official unions are using. One is the closed shop legislation, and the other, which is related, is the protection of employment legislation. So long as an employer can be compelled by a union to sack a man who falls out with that union or whose union falls out with him, without compensation, without recourse to law, without the right of an industrial tribunal or anything, it is useless asking the fellows in the factories and in other industrial enterprises to resist, because if they resist they run the risk of losing their livelihood in that place or, if they are a journalist or something like that, of losing it in their profession altogether. We are very censorious of Eastern European countries and 1614 the Soviet bloc, but once you can prevent a man from earning his living and maintaining his family, the next step for the rest of the Gulag is not an awful way. "The right to work", we used to say; "the right to strike, to withhold our labour", we used to say. Today we are denying people the right to dissent, and that right to dissent must be restored if we want the people in a factory or a mine or a field or an office or a lab, or a hospital or a school to stand up to the bullies who are saying, "Do it!"

The most reverend Primate's reference to the engine driver who is a church warden—I heard as I stood below the Bar—shocked me. That man knows the situation so well. The Archbishop said he did not know how to make his view effective. His view should really be able to be made effective by his throwing in his union card and turning up for work; but he dare not do it. He dare not do it because, possibly, he is afraid of physical violence, although most of our fellows are not. What he is afraid of is that he will never get back on the railways again. You have got to alter that situation. It is the closed shop legislation and the protection of employment legislation which have gone too far. They have provided too much protection for wicked men and no protection at all for the good men and the good women who want to resist—indeed, in the odd, paradoxical way these things work, they have withdrawn protection from them.

My Lords, I have made my proposals—they are not proposals: they are statements of what I would have done. My old colleagues on the Government Benches may affect to be shocked by it or not. I say only this. I do it as a teamster, to use the American word which is somehow more offensive than "Transport and General Workers' Union". I do it with great pride in my lifetime in the trade union and Labour movement, whatever my present differences with my ex-colleagues. I do it with no sense of apology. I want the trade union movement to have strength, and I want to be able to use our bargaining power in a way in which we were too weak to exercise it when I started organising in the early 'thirties. But I want that power to be used only for its own purposes—and I close with this. I read the other day that Sir Robert Mark said—I have not checked 1615 his figures—that because he draws an inflation-proofed pension at the higher levels of the Civil Service rates, by the time he is 83, which will be the year 2000 (which, after all, is only 20 years away), because of the effect of inflation and the rises which are built in now he will be taking—not that he will need, but he will be taking, naturally—£388,000 a year, with a few hundred over—for tips, I suppose. It is no use the Solicitor-General getting a little bit uncomfortable there, because this is what the man said and no doubt the actuaries can work it out.

Lord McCLUSKEY

My Lords——

Lord GEORGE-BROWN

My Lords, may I just finish? I heard the Solicitor-General in silence. He is winding up the debate, and he can deal with the point then. The German experience very largely began this way, when they started to print Deutschemarks, not in ones, fives and tens but in thousands and in tens of thousands in order that people could carry them home. We are on this way now. These disputes will be settled. They will be bought off. The Government will do their best to keep it somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent. They will not keep it much below 20 per cent. I should like it to be as low as possible, but it will be somewhere around that rate. That means more inflation this year and another big step towards Sir Robert Mark's pension.

I as a trade unionist want my trade union movement to be told that we will discipline those disrupting it, as well as the State, in order that they can thereafter discipline themselves again. I want that done because I do not want other people outside the trade union movement doing what other people did in Germany at the end of the day; that is, saying, "We are going to put a stop to it", and doing it by non-democratic means. I think the Government have gone wrong. I think they should be clear why they have gone wrong. I do not want them to come to the penitents' stool or the confessional box. They have gone wrong because they have not realised where the power now is, the kind of people who are using it and what they are using it for; and I want them to be able to say, "We will beat that" in order, among other things, that the real 1616 leadership of the trade unions can be reestablished, with its proper democratic authority and responsibility.

Lord McCLUSKEY

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down may I say, in view of one or two discourteous references, as I see them, to my part in this so far, that I have not—and I ask him to acknowledge this—so far intervened in this debate. I was asked to repeat, and with the permission of the House, I repeated, a Statement confined to the law of picketing. I did not mention the closed shop. It was not relevant. I did not mention the Employment Protection Act. I should like the noble Lord to consider withdrawing his observations about the sophistries of the Solicitor-General for Scotland in relation to that matter.

If he does me the courtesy, for once, of staying until the end of a debate to which I reply, I will reply to his points in relation to the closed shop and to the Employment Protection Act.

Lord GEORGE-BROWN

My Lords, that sounded rather a discourteous ending of its own—and I do not ask for it to be withdrawn. If I hurt him, it was not my intention so to do: but I think that in some of his answers to some of the questions this afternoon the word "sophistry" would, by my knowledge of the language, be a reasonable description. It was not intended to hurt. If it did hurt, I will withdraw it. What about "sophisticated"? What other word would the Solicitor-General for Scotland like?

Viscount WATKINSON

My Lords, I am glad to follow the noble Lord because I think it is far better that a trade unionist and a distinguished ex-Member of a Labour Government should describe in the terms that the noble Lord has just described the paralysis of indecision that so many of us feel is afflicting Her Majesty's Government at this point. It is better coming from him, and it fortunately provides a very satisfactory background to what I want to say. Before saying it, may I add my sincere congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Smith, for bringing home to us what it is all about in terms of human misery.

1617 For 30 years in my small way I tried to make some kind of contribution, in Government and out, to better industrial relations. I think that those of us who have done so might say that today we are all voices crying in the wilderness. I, too, knew Arthur Deakin and I had to deal with him. I think it right to say today how much more in command of his union I found him; how he was able to promise and to deliver—and one never questioned it—and, more important, how much more he was conscious of where the national interest lay.

I agree with my noble friend who opened this debate. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, who seemed to think that most of us were talking about a sort of nothing. Where I think that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, has gone a little further than I would have gone, is in the concept that this is all a matter of just a few bad men. So it is—and I want to come back to that—but we must discipline those bad men by accepting as a nation that we really are all of us, or 99 per cent. of us, trying to serve the national interest. I think that to me the saddest thing about the present mess that we are in is that the trade union leaders (and, more important, the trade union rank and file) are not willing to realise that what they are having done to them—and I agree with the noble Lord there—is against the national interest and, therefore, against every striker's interest except for those few men who are determined to wreck our society if they can manage it. There is nothing secret about this. They say it, they publish it, they print it. I do not know—sometimes the noble Lord and I got on very well when we were on opposite sides of the House and sometimes not; but I have always believed that he said what he believed. It is a good thing that he, as a distinguished ex-Member of a Labour Government, has described the kind of paralysis—and I see no other word for it—which at the moment they seem to be imposing in all their actions.

If we left the small minority of men who are organising militant picketing and who are trying to run this as a campaign to bring down what they would call our Right-Wing industrialist society, then, on the whole, it will damage the interests of every single trade union member and the nation as a whole. Perhaps over every 1618 trade union secretary's desk at the moment should hang a sign saying: "Export will not wait!" It is really no good the Government saying: "The CBI made a mistake in saying that there will be a million unemployed". Maybe they did; they were in good company with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The point is that more than a million men are already adversely affected by what is happening and the effect on them is not going to be the next week or two but the next months and the next years if we do not look out.

My Lords, what should we do? There is no use in our sitting down and wringing our hands. I might, I suppose, cry a few crocodile tears and say that for a chap who has tried hard in business and in other ways to make some contribution, it has all come to naught. But I do not believe that. We must go on and try to get through this quite horrific situation. Really, I think that some Members of the Government should read the foreign Press more closely than they do, and they would see the problems that our exporters are going to have, and the problems that people like me and some of my noble friends who have to travel abroad, are going to have in trying to explain to the world that we have not gone stark staring mad; so let us face that.

To come to some practical things in what will be a short series of remarks, I think we must now alter the law on the misuse of picketing and the closed shop. I think that the Government were extremely unwise—and they will regret this—to refuse or reject the offer from my right honourable friend the Leader of my Party, Mrs. Thatcher. I think it was a difficult thing for her to do. I think that joint action on picketing and the closed shop and so on is, as my right honourable friend said, in the total national interest. I think that the Government missed a very great chance in that offer from the official Opposition to support them in the not very contentious or controversial legislation that would have dealt with this particular problem. If they do not do that, then they must answer the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, and say what they do intend to do for themselves.

Well, my Lords, so much for the symptoms. I think that those symptoms must now be dealt with. If the present 1619 Government are not willing to deal with them, then the nation will make sure that a different Government, a Conservative Government, comes in that are willing to do so. I want to say a word or two about the longer term because, in my view, the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, is right in saying that we will not cure this disease just by talking about it or deprecating it. The problem of the more militant trade union shop steward and leader on the shop floors will not go away. It is a new problem and a new attitude, and an attitude that is more dedicated or more bitter than I have ever seen in my life. It cannot be put on one side either by any Government or by the TUC. It must be faced.

Ever since Sir Winston Churchill asked me to become Parliamentary Secretary to Walter Monckton, I have had a moderate amount of experience in Government and in industry and, more recently, in the CBI. That experience leads me to one conclusion as to what we ought to do. I should just like to set this out. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that if this House is to have any impact on affairs—and I fear that it has sadly little; I would agree with him on that—we must try to say what we feel. But also we must make a constructive proposition to the nation on what ought to happen. The first thing that ought to happen is that the Government must have more teeth to deal with what are really infringements of the law.

I did not understand the noble and learned Lord the Solicitor-General for Scotland in his Statement. I doubt whether anyone else in industry understands it. I am sure that my noble and learned friend can understand it because he is a distinguished lawyer and I hope that I shall feel suitably instructed when he has dealt with it. The ordinary chap will say, "Phooey! I am where I was and I will do what I adjectivally please!". That will not get us anywhere. So we have to deal with that; we have to deal with the symptoms, and if this Government cannot do it, they ought to give way to one that will. We must at the same time look to curing the disease which is going to ruin us all. Although everybody says it, we must keep on saying it because it happens to be true.

1620 What could be done to cure the disease? This might be easier for my Party, the Conservative Party, because it is fair to accept that I believe the present Government are in great difficulty and greatly inhibited by the fact of the TUC presence within their own Party and the fact—and I am only quoting the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown—that the TUC leadership at the moment is, if not weak, inexperienced. I ventured to say to your Lordships when I spoke on the debate on the Address that I thought we might pay a very heavy price for the inexperience of some trade union leaders. I think that events since then have proved what I said to be right.

I hope that what will happen first—and if it cannot happen in this Government I hope that the next Conservative Government will deal with it—is that industrialists will be pressed to give even more information than they are now doing. I do not mean by some stupid implementation of the Bullock Report; they should have a firm code of conduct which a Conservative Government once very nearly drew up, although they did not bring it into effect. I think my noble friend knows all about that. They must give more information and must get real participation among their own people at all levels to begin to make life easier for the leaders of the trade unions, so that they cannot be constantly subverted by people on the shop floor who are going around telling absolute lies about almost every kind of industrial life and industrial progress.

The Government have to make a major change in their budget strategy. We really must have some kind of public debate each year, and I do not mind where it is held. One could invent a new body or have Neddy. The debate should certainly take place in both Houses of Parliament on what the nation is all about and what level of inflation we can tolerate. It should not be a debate about a 5 per cent. norm, which, as I have said numerous times to your Lordships, was a fatal mistake from the very beginning, but a debate on what the nation can afford. There would be some advantage in having part of this debate in NEDC. The leaders of the trade union movement have never boycotted this body. They still regard themselves as being committed to what it decides 1621 —certainly, the CBI membership take that view. Let this debate take place and let employers and the trade union leadership be committed to the kind of background to wage demands and negotiations which will emerge. This may mean sweeping away all sorts of sacred cows so far as the Treasury are concerned. I do not think it matters very much. Each year, employers and the TUC must be involved by being committed—as in West Germany and most of our other large competitors—to what the nation can afford and roughly how it should go about it. That is not a wages policy, not a norm, but a general background to it all.

Now, lastly, the TUC. It is difficult for me to talk about the TUC. I have had many friends in that august body—most of them, sadly, now retired. The TUC have to come back to the old days when their leaders were willing to recognise the national interest as being the interest of all their members. As the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, said, they also have to be strengthened to deal with the bully boys and the political activists in their own ranks. I believe that only they can deal with them. I do not believe that one can legislate these people out of existence. In a time of crisis one can do something, but on the whole the trade unions must put their own house in order. All I am saying is that employers could help them a great deal more than they do by telling their own people the facts, and the Government could help them more than they do by creating a climate of opinion which the nation is willing to accept. Of course the nation does not want double figure inflation. If only the national will could be expressed there, it would be much easier for strikers to see that what they are doing is damaging their own interests and the interests of their mates, their wives, their friends and their relations. It is part of this proposal that the TUC is able to regain control of its own business and its own house. If it cannot, then some day some Government will have to do so for it. That I personally would greatly regret because that Government might not be a very democratic one.

The three points that I should like to leave with your Lordships are these: first, of course the symptoms must be 1622 dealt with. If the present Government are not willing to do it, I hope and pray that my noble friends will have the earliest possible opportunity to get on with it. Secondly, employers have to do more. They have made a good start and many of them are doing a lot. They must do more. They must be encouraged and even pressed to do more to prepare the climate on the shop floor and thus make it more difficult for the activists and the bully boys to get their way. Then, the Government must be prepared to debate with the nation as a whole what they want to do in a budget before they frame that budget. They must try to get a national consensus on what can or cannot be done. Finally, the trade union movement, particularly the Economic Committee of the TUC and the so called Neddy Six, must take their courage in both hands and once again do what some of their predecessors—Tom Williamson, Arthur Deakin and so many others—did. They must have the guts to give a lead and see the national interest even if it means rough-riding their own members from time to time.

Lord PARRY

My Lords, there is in the poetry of the English language a line that I tried to find for insertion in this debate. I failed to find it where I expected to do so, in the poetry of Matthew Arnold. It is a line that says he mourned the fact there were none to cry halt while the world trekked back from progress". I believe that everyone who has taken part in this debate will imagine that he or she has been doing that. I believe that the last speaker but one, the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, probably thought that he was doing that—making a massive attempt to do so in this House.

I believe this House is probably at its best when it begins its debates. There was an occasion here this afternoon when it was remarkably free from political prejudice and the discussion addressed itself directly to the items that have caused concern in the country. Quite properly, there were focussed upon here. The debate has at times dropped below the early level and it would be wrong to conceal that fact. What we are dealing with is a situation in which the systems of democracy are under strain. Everyone 1623 who has contributed to this debate has marked some aspect of concern about systems within our democracy that are not now fulfilling those tasks that they were created to fulfil.

In a remarkable maiden speech Lord Smith drew attention to the fact that it is useless for us to wring our hands because democratic institutions have changed. It is equally useless for men who have passed out of government itself, who have either failed in it or finished with it, to say what they would do if now in office. In fact democratic processes have moved them from it.

I want to say here that I believe that the Prime Minister of this country is as well aware as anyone who has spoken in this debate of the great difficulties with which he is grappling. He faces circumstances that will not be changed if the Government are changed. He faces circumstances that are long term, that have grown into the system of the economy, and these will be the circumstances that will be faced by any Prime Minister of Great Britain the morning after the next Election. They have to be faced by Prime Minister's the world around. When the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, referred to the happenings in Iran, he only emphasised the better value of the British democratic system and proved how much better it is than the system that in fact he has publicly extolled.

I believe that we have a democracy whose institutions can, even yet, be used to head off the worst effects of any crisis, whether internal or, as I believe, largely external, if only the people who care so much about democracy now cared only a little about it in the moments when the need for concern is not so obvious. No one has said in this debate that there are 1,200 Members of this Chamber. Where are the 800 now? No one has said in this debate that every Member of the Transport and General Workers Union throughout Britain has the right, at least on one night of most weeks, to go along to his trade union branch and make his views felt. It is a fact that the democratic representation of the people of Britain is as open and free now as it ever was.

When I see a picket line with alienated men standing with snow on their shoulders in incredibly uncomfortable conditions, I recognise some of the things that people 1624 have drawn attention to in this debate. I see the fact that men can be manipulated by others, that women can be worried by circumstances which they may be powerless to control. But I also see men and women with whom I have worked in other circumstances, in social, public and political life, standing in the picket line because they feel they have a case to put and they intend to put it in the way that seems best for them to make it. I believe the Prime Minister of Britain recognises this and, given the backing of the Cabinet he has behind him, he can represent best the concerns that we wish represented.

I know it would be much more convenient for noble Lords on the other side of the House to see this Government fall. I honestly do not think it would advance the cause of Britain; nor indeed the specific solutions that have been suggested this afternoon. In fact, I feel totally to the contrary. I know it would suit the personal wishes of certain individuals taking part in this debate if they were to find themselves in office. I believe that they are honest in that and I would have wished that the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, had attributed similar honesty to my noble friend the Solicitor-General for Scotland, who, in his conduct of every debate in this place has confirmed in the opinions of his friends and of his nominal enemies that he is a man who can be trusted always to bring to his task the ethics, sincerity and honesty that we have the right to expect of people who have inherited high office.

I believe that we have the right to expect that in a debate tributes could be made in a way that removes from them any innuendo of criticism. I am not going to go on at great length, because the points that I wished to make have already been made, but I wish to say that we have indications of the way in which the representatives of institutions in our democracy have declined. When the most reverend Primate comes here from his cathedral to speak in a debate in this House, he does so knowing that the great Church of which he is the father is not now as influential in the life of the country as it was 30 or 40 years ago or longer, when the other parallel institutions were founded.

I think we all recognise that there are politically-motivated men using the institutions of democracy for their own 1625 advantage. We had perhaps best look at the way in which pessimism is created and sustained in this country. The country might not have felt so pessimistic if the media had not taken up consistently particular stories that focussed attention on specific events, as if they were general ones. I think this pessimistic mood has been built up over a number of years—not just over the past three years, but affecting successive Governments in this country—a mood that makes it increasingly difficult for democratically-elected Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers to affect their manifesto and to carry out the will of the people.

In closing, I would say that I am as fully conscious as anyone of the need to articulate the fears of people even when they have perhaps wasted their own opportunities to affect the debate when they have stayed at home, watching television, when they should have been at a union meeting or attending some other meeting in public life. I believe that the law is clear. I believe that, although the distinguished former Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hail-sham, may feel that there should be changes in the law. The law, as it exists, can clearly be implemented to control and monitor the situation we face. I believe it is essential that the institutions that exist and the laws that exist should be properly used for those who really do care for democracy in Britain and for the future in Britain.

Lord MONSON

My Lords, I should like to start by apologising to the House for the fact that, unfortunately, I may have to leave before the end of the debate because of circumstances beyond my control. Next I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Smith, on his admirable, clear and most telling maiden speech.

For as long as I can remember, mobs, or if I may put it in a more emotionally neutral way, large crowds, have been given enormous latitude by authority in this country. I do not want to define the word "authority" too precisely in this context; but a crowd of 1,000 or 10,000 is allowed to get away with things that a crowd of 10 or 20 could never get away 1626 with, and still less a solitary individual. I know there are pragmatic arguments trotted out to justify this, such as avoidance of confrontation and so on; but even so this state of affairs has always made me uneasy and now, with the unions bolstered by the excessive privileges granted to them by Statute from 1974 onwards, we see the logical consequences of this policy. Food and vital raw materials are held up; our export trade is damaged and the reputation of our exporters in the future is damaged even more; farm animals are dying for lack of feedstuffs; medical supplies are interrupted; salt for de-icing the roads is also held up with a consequent danger to human life; cancer patients are evicted and school children are depicted as "blacklegs" for bringing packed lunches to school.

The pickets and their backers, not all of whom are trade unionists—we have heard of students and members of the Socialist Workers Party and many others—have in fact usurped the functions of Government and arrogated to themselves the right to decide which goods and services shall pass and which shall not pass, and whether or not ordinary citizens shall be permitted to go about their lawful business. In addition, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, mentioned the other day, we see the extortion of money on a gigantic scale. Either this extortion is legal, in which case the Inland Revenue should surely be taking an interest, or it is illegal—in which case the police should surely be doing something. From the Statement made today, I take it that the practice is in fact illegal and I hope that something will shortly be done.

I have been reminded rather forcefully during the last week or two or my one and only visit to Haiti. It was in 1963, at the time of the notorious Francois Duvalier and his Tonton Macoutes; it was in the era of Graham Greene's famous novel set in that island. Haiti was a haunting and fascinating place, but three aspects of its still come to mind very vividly. The first was poverty. I have never seen such poverty anywhere in my travels, with the possible exception of some parts of the Indian Sub-continent. The second was fear, and the wary, cautious look in everyone's eyes—the circumspection and the way in which 1627 nobody was willing to commit themselves openly. In this respect it was worse than the still-Stalinist pre-Dubcek Czechoslovakia which I had visited in the previous year.

The third thing I remember so well was the fact that there were road blocks every few hundred yards, manned by people in civilian clothes, where money was demanded as the price for being allowed to continue on one's way. Provided one paid up and did not argue there were no problems, but I hate to think what might have happened if one had taken any other course.

We certainly do not have Haiti's poverty in this country—yet—but we see the circumspection and we see people reluctant to speak their minds: people who wish to remain anonymous when writing to the newspapers, and those who wish not to be quoted. They are generally fearful, and this is a most disturbing feature of contemporary British life. More shockingly, we have all heard of employers who have sacked faithful employees who have not wished to come out on strike, because the employers do not want to offend some union or other; and, of course, we now have the road blocks where money is extorted from those who wish to pass on their lawful business.

The Government are patting themselves on the back over the fact that there has been virtually no violence so far, but, of course, if everything has been going your own way, and if the spirit of your opponents has been totally crushed, there is no need for violence, because everything is on the point of falling neatly into your lap. Why has the spirit of the opposition, of the silent majority, been crushed? It is surely because of the closed shop, and the consequent fear that anybody who offends the pickets may lose his trade union card, and hence his livelihood, for ever more. In Czechoslovakia, those who offend the powers that be lose their university professorships or whatever and have no option but to end up as road sweepers or in some other unskilled menial job. It is certainly more humane than the practice further East of sending such people to psychiatric hospitals; but it is surely not something to be encouraged or even in the mildest form copied over here.

1628 Surely, all this demonstrates that the closed shop is a gross infringement of individual freedom, and that, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown and the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, among others, said, it must be outlawed or, at least, severely curtailed. The principle of the closed shop is certainly in conflict with the principles underlying the European Convention on Human Rights. It has already been banned in certain West European countries. Similar legislation is bound to be emulated here at some point Let it be sooner rather than later.

One other piece of legislation needs repealing in order—if I may quote the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to whom we are very grateful for initiating this debate—to restore the balance of bargaining power which recent legislation has upset. At the last count, there were 147 countries who are members of the United Nations Organisation. I say "at the last count", because the number grows almost weekly. Of those 147, only one, Britain, subsidises strikes by paying supplementary social security benefits to strikers via their families. It is true that three other countries: two Scandinavian countries—I am not sure which two, at the moment—and the Netherlands, make loans to strikers but those loans must be repaid in full when the strike terminates.

It is clear from the Crossman Diaries that the Government of the day saw the flaws in this legislation almost as soon as it reached the Statute Book, but by then they felt it too late to do anything about it. I cannot see that there would be any serious public objection if we were to get into line with the rest of the world once again after an interval of just over 12 years. The point is that it is simply not in human nature to look a gift horse in the mouth, nor is it fair to expect people to do so. If people are even slightly bored with their job, if they have no particular loyalty towards their employer or to their customers, and if, in addition, there is absolutely no financial disadvantage whatsoever in striking, then why on earth not go on strike? Repeal of this legislation would, strange as it may seem at first glance, be very much in the long-term interest of the average trade unionist.

Only two days ago, I met a small employer in North London—a sensitive, 1629 kindly and experienced man who had spent much of his working life on the shop floor himself—who, very sadly, was on the point of closing down his small light engineering works after six years. Because of reasons that he could not put his finger on, there had been a complete breakdown of labour discipline—he did not use that phrase, but that is what he meant—over the past few months; timekeeping had gone to pot, absenteeism was rife and workmanship had become slipshod. He was losing money heavily in consequence, and could not afford to continue, with the result that more than a dozen extra people would be joining the dole queues and swelling the unemployment statistics.

The trouble is that people like his employees had come to assume that—if I may slip for a brief moment into the hideous political jargon of the 1970s—they were in a "no lose situation", and of course, in the very short term, their assumptions were right. But a country simply cannot function in this way effectively, or indeed at all, for any length of time. Surely it is time, calmly and dispassionately, but with determination, to redress the balance and make people once again face the consequences of their deliberate actions. If this and the other necessary reforms were carried out, I believe that this country would be a more prosperous and also a happier place.

Lord BOYD-CARPENTER

My Lords, I would seek to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Parry, on one point he made in his otherwise delightfully poetical speech. He suggested that the tone and standard of this debate had fallen, because among a number of recent speeches there had been criticism directed at the Government's handling of the crisis. I put this to the noble Lord. I think we are all agreed in this House, without dispute, that the country is facing a grave situation in which the very fabric of our society is being shaken. We are incurring losses which will affect our standards of life and our balance of payments for years to come; we are losing export markets, some of which we may never regain, and the relative downward standard of life in this country as compared with our friends in the EEC 1630 is going to take a further jerk downwards. In that situation, surely those, of whom I am one, who believe that the Government are not handling the situation effectively, would really be untrue to our duty if we did not say so. If the patient is seriously ill and you think that the doctor is poisoning him, surely you should not say: "Hush, no disturbance in the sick room. The patient is too seriously ill to challenge the admission of poison". Surely it is up to those who think that way to say so, loud and clear.

I found the speech of the Leader of the House, the Lord Privy Seal, towards the beginning of this debate, desperately depressing. We had a long, conscientious and, as always with the noble Lord, courteously delivered summary of the things that are going wrong, of the disasters that are falling on our community. But there was not throughout that speech a single indication that the Government had any new idea or new policy as to how to handle it. We start in the position that this country is in a mess, and it is surely up to those who hold responsibility—however tenuously, however temporarily—as Government to indicate what they are going to do about it, what changes they are going to make.

We had a reference, as we have had again and again in these debates, to the anti-inflation policy. But we had no apparent even realisation that the admirable objectives of that policy—and the objectives are such as we would all support—are not being achieved by the methods that are being used. Surely it is now obvious—and I say this with pain and sadness, as I am sure your Lordships will accept—that the policy has failed that whether or not you call it an anti-inflation policy, it is not inhibiting inflation and we are now seeing wage settlements, some of them in the public sector and within the direct control of the Government, such as that in the BBC, which make the 5 per cent., to which the Prime Minister pinned his faith so eloquently only a few weeks ago, seem like a remote daydream. In that situation, the House should have expected, and the country certainly would, statements from those who sit on that Bench opposite, and a similar Bench in the other place, indicating that the Government will now take steps to deal with the matter.

1631 I think that the basic mistake that the Government have made—and I hope that they are coming to realise this—has been that they have sought to enforce the anti-inflation policy solely by putting pressure on the employers, while leaving the trade unions not only free of any Government interference or pressure, but still entrenched behind their massive legal privileges. This approach ignores the fact that it is not the employers as a whole who are pressing to make inflationary wage settlements. The pressure, of course, comes from the trade unions. In those circumstances, to put all your pressure upon the employer—who in most cases is, to the best of his ability, trying to resist excessive demands while leaving the organisations which are making the demands absolutely unhindered in their attack—is surely a reductio ad absurdum of policy. It is as though, as it were, police action were taken against the householder while all the courtesies were shown to the burglar.

The locus classicus of this policy and the perfect exemplifier of its failure has been the Ford issue, upon which I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, a Question two days ago. I am sorry that she is not in her place on the Front Bench. With her usual chivalry, the noble Baroness made her usual gallant efforts to defend the indefensible.

Let us look at what happened in the case of the Ford issue, because it crystallises the failure of the Government's policy. It was made clear to Fords that Government contracts and everything else would be withheld if they settled for more than 5 per cent. They offered 5 per cent., the immediate result of which was a nine weeks' strike which cost Fords several hundred million pounds and this country's balance of payments very substantial sums indeed. At the end of those nine weeks and of those colossal losses, Fords settled for 17 per cent., which everybody knows is very much higher than they could have settled for at the beginning of the dispute, thus avoiding the strike.

Policies of that kind inevitably produce disaster. The noble Baroness, Lady Birk, said, "Oh well, we had to do it, because otherwise other people would have made higher settlements; as it is, they have settled for less". The fallacy of that 1632 argument is that in the light of the Ford settlement and some of the others which are now being made and offered, those unions which a few months ago were content to settle for 5 per cent. are reopening the matter. Therefore, the disaster resulting to the Government's policy and to the interests of the nation from the 17 per cent. Ford settlement, which itself was the result of the course of events which I have described, is all the more severe. In the future, that figure will be taken as the norm or standard.

It is no use moaning, as the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, did two days ago, and as the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal did to some extent today, about the fact that another place deprived the Government of the sanctions weapon. If the counter-inflation policy is crucially important—and I personally accept that it is—and if the sanctions weapon were a necesssary instrument for effecting that policy, why on earth did the Government simply accept the decision of another place and not, saying that it was necessary, offer to dissolve Parliament and submit the issue to the electorate? If the sanctions policy were a necessary instrument for restraining inflation in this country and the Government felt that they had been denied it, as they have said, by what they regarded as the misguided decision of another place, they could have taken the constitutional course of appealing to the people. Such a course is even more obvious and evident when you are already getting towards the end of the first half of the fifth year of a Parliament. Oh, but no; the Government stay on, without the weapon, and grumble about it. But they offer no alternative.

I shall seek, as most noble Lords have been, to be constructive. Therefore, I should like to put two suggestions to the Government. If the Government really are sincere about their counter-inflation policy, as they say, why do they not—and here I have much sympathy with the noble Lords on the Liberal Benches—obtain Parliamentary authority, not for a rigid figure but for the guidelines and seek to embody them in a Statute which could be adjusted, with Parliamentary approval, by Statutory Instrument; and, having done that, then legislate to remove the immunity from suit of the trade dispute provisions of the Trades Disputes Act in the case of any strike which is 1633 being pursued to effect a breach of the guidelines? Where a union is demanding something which, in the Government's view, is disastrous and violating guidelines which they regard as essential, why do they not say that such a union need not have the legal privilege which unions otherwise have in pursuit of their lawful claims? If the Government were sincere, why do they not do that?

Equally, why do the Government not use the instrument of the Inland Revenue to secure that proper levels of taxation, payable through PAYE, are imposed upon the fruits of settlements that breach the guidelines? The fact that the Government do not even seem to have explored these possibilities, but are simply going on with their policy of attacking the employers, is what I find to be the most infinitely depressing thing about this debate. Deprived of the sanctions weapon, the Government are now trying to use the other blunt instrument of the Price Commission, the legislation regarding which will be reaching us shortly.

But before that legislation reaches us and before we discuss it may I say this, with great respect, to the noble and learned Lord on the Front Bench: do the Government realise that if they simply use the Price Commission to squeeze employers' profits, to squeeze the employers in the upper millstone of the Price Commission and the lower millstone of the unions, they will not achieve their object? They will diminish employment. They will cause investment in this country to be cut off. They will produce a steady running down of the economy. No company with responsibilities to its shareholders will continue with investments and developments on a substantial scale which will give employment if it knows that it is to be subjected to a process of that kind.

May I give the House a small example that I came across the other day of how this kind of thing happens. In a certain case of which I know, the person concerned sought a very useful little device to go into the shoe of somebody who has a badly disabled foot. He went to a shop where previously he had obtained this device but was told that it is no longer made; the Price Commission had denied an increase, so the device is no longer made. That kind of thing, which is a small tragedy to a few disabled 1634 individuals, will be repeated again and again if the Government try to use the Price Commission to pursue their insane policy—I do not think that that is too strong a word—of apply all the pressure to the employer while leaving the unions scot free.

May I say one word more regarding picketing, as the noble and learned Lord who was good enough to repeat today's Statement today is going to wind up this debate, upon which I should like to invite his comments. He said to us, I recall—and he will correct me if I am wrong—that pickets have no right to force a driver to stop. Will the noble and learned Lord tell the House and the people outside in plain language what a driver is to do if he drives up to a depot where he is to collect or deliver goods and finds, as drivers are finding every hour of the day at the moment, a line of pickets? Is he to drive into them, or is he, as they wish him to do, to stop? If he stops, the pickets, by standing there, are effecting what the noble and learned Lord says that they are not allowed to effect.

If I am right, ought not the Government, faced with that situation, to instruct the police to take action to clear the way so that a driver who does not wish to stop and carry on a conversation with the pickets shall be entitled to exercise his right? To say, "You can complain to the police afterwards ", does not take one anywhere, because of the practicalities of identification at the depot where the driver does not know the pickets, who themselves may have come a long distance, and makes a mere retrospective complaint to the police wholly useless and ineffective. What is needed is resolution by the public authorities concerned to enable not only the pickets to exercise their rights under the law as it now stands, as they should do, but equally to allow other people going about their lawful business to exercise their right, and particularly their right of not being stopped. I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Solicitor-General will give us the answer to that.

On all our experience of the last week or two it seems that the Government intend to do none of these things. The Government, led by the present Prime Minister, will not take any action which 1635 will seriously displease the major trade unions. The noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, in his most remarkable speech—and, if I may say so in parenthesis, this debate was justified if only on account of the opportunity it gave us to hear that very remarkable speech spoken with Lord George-Brown's authority on these subjects—reminded us that it was the present Prime Minister who, consistent with his policy of never displeasing the unions, defeated the attempts of Sir Harold Wilson and of Mrs. Barbara Castle to carry through the trade union legislation embodying the effect of In Place of Strife. Those of us who had the pleasure of reading the late Mr. Richard Crossman's entertaining memoirs were able to read in detail how that was done. If I may say so, I have great personal affection for the present Prime Minister, whom I have known for a great many years, and in personal terms he will not take any action which will displease the unions, and I believe that is the single factor which will bring this Government down. That is a circumstance which I admit I can contemplate with stoical fortitude, but my fortitude is diminished by the damage which can be done in the interval. The Government are tottering to their fall; they are obviously in their last stages—not prepared to take a stand, dominated, as I think one of my noble friends said, by the strong Transport and General Worker element with their majority in the House of Commons and indeed among two members of the Cabinet, including, curiously enough, the Minister responsible for maintaining our food supplies. But when they go—and perhaps the sooner the better—I can contribute an epitaph which, if the most reverend Primate will permit me, is based upon a rather cruel parody of my favourite hymn: Trembling they passed, the great surrender made, Into contempt which never more shall fade; Their memory hated in the land they failed".

Lord WIGODER

My Lords, from these Benches may I first say how much we appreciated the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Smith, and secondly how much we are looking forward to the maiden speech as a free citizen of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. 1636 I make no apology for devoting the whole of my remarks to the present unsatisfactory state of the law of picketing and as to what can be done to improve it. I do that, recognising that of course the present state of the law of picketing is not the cause of our present troubles but I believe it is a very substantial cause of the extent of those troubles. Therefore, I cannot go along with the noble Lord, Lord Wigg, who appeared to think that it was somewhat indelicate to raise this matter at this stage. On the contrary, I believe it is urgent to do so and perhaps even more urgent that it should be done at a moment when there are a large number of people, both inside the unions and outside, who would welcome such reforms.

May I therefore begin with the simple observation that there is no such right as the right to picket. I think it was Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg—I hope I have the reference right—who spoke about the "inalienable rights with which all men had been endowed by their creator", but he did not go on to enumerate the right to strike or the right to march or the right to picket. The reason why the right to picket is not a human right or a fundamental right or anything of that sort is simply that, certainly under our law, picketing by itself per se is invariably unlawful. It is unlawful from the point of view of the civil law because it must give rise to some effect to induce a breach of contract; it is unlawful under the criminal law because it must invariably at the least give rise to some obstruction of the highway, and therefore the only right which people have to picket is that right which has been specifically granted by legislation in this country. Those are the only circumstances in which it is permissible under our law.

I would not want to blame the present Government for the state of that law. The fact is that Section 15 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974 re-enacts word for word—except for one (for these purposes) irrelevant phrase—Section 2 of the Trade Disputes Act of 1906 and I do not need reminding that that Act was passed by a Liberal Government. I hope therefore that it is not entirely inappropriate that it is a Liberal who might perhaps urge the need now drastically to reform that section. I do so in the belief that we are being loyal 1637 to our principles, because we believe still that the law should be used in order to protect the weaker members of society. What has changed in the last 70 years is that the whole balance of power, economically and politically, in our society has changed and the techniques of picketing have developed in a way which was never envisaged back in 1906. They have developed now to such an extent that it is difficult to draw any valid distinction between a major strike in an essential service industry and an apparently minor strike in an industry which is not of such immediate importance, because in the way that picketing has developed the minor strike can develop and progress very rapidly into a major threat to the welfare of the whole community.

As your Lordships will hear in a moment, I come to the conclusion that not only are reforms necessary but in the last resort it is necessary for them to be enforced by the criminal law. I consider, if I may, four immediate reforms, for which I believe there would be a great measure of public support. The first reform is that the number of pickets at any place of access where industrial action is taking place should be limited, perhaps to six or 10 or whatever number is thought appropriate. I know that there are some difficulties in enforcing that, although not quite the absurd difficulty postulated in the Government's consultative document of last November, where it was stated that it would be difficult for the police to decide who were the excess persons who had no right to be there.

There are various criminal statutes of which the law of riot, for example, is one, an offence which is committed by more than 10 people in certain circumstances. If the police find a riot they do not have to determine which is the 11th man and only deal with him; all 11 who were taking part in the riot are guilty of the offence and I can see no practical difficulty at all in the police dealing with the situation if they find more than a permitted statutory number of pickets on any one place of access to premises where there is strike action. I do not believe that any of us in this country want a recurrence of the Grunwick troubles and of the tremendous strain that in particular that put upon the Metropolitan Police Force.

1638 The second reform which I believe is necessary is that picketing should be limited, so that it can lawfully be carried on only by members of the union who are employees of the employers who are involved in the dispute. I believe again there is widespread support for this, and indeed it appears in the guidelines issued by the Transport and General Workers' Union last week and it is clearly acceptable to that union, at any rate, at this stage. It is, I think, very necessary, to some extent for the reason touched on by the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, in his remarkable speech, and that is that there are groups of people in this country, particularly—there is no point in not naming them—in the Socialist Workers Party, who latch on to every industrial dispute for the purpose of causing complete anarchy and overthrowing our whole state of society. I believe our society is entitled to fight back against that menace and there is no reason at all why these people should be allowed to join in every industrial dispute and adopt it as their own for ulterior motives and with not the slightest interest in the welfare of those who happen to be on strike.

The third limitation that I believe should be considered is simply that those who are picketing should picket only at their own place of employment, and the fourth limitation that again I believe is desirable is that they should seek to dissuade only those who are working for the company with whom the union is in dispute. Again I do not think there is any real difficulty about that, because that also has been accepted by the TGWU in their current instructions to their pickets. I believe that those four proposals would very substantially diminish the risks which the whole community undergoes at the moment from the spread of mass picketing, from the use of flying pickets and from the use of secondary pickets. I do not believe they are any restriction at all upon the legitimate right of those involved in an industrial dispute to further their dispute by striking. I should perhaps add that I cannot see how it is possible to give pickets a legal right to stop vehicles. That seems to me something that would give rise to intolerable problems for the police, and I cannot see how that right can lawfully be given to them.

If these reforms, or some of them, are necessary, I turn to look, lastly, at how 1639 they can be brought about. There are four possible ways of doing it. The first is by a code of practice similar to that which the TGWU have issued recently. I find this difficult to regard as an ideal solution. Codes of practice are invaluable when they define the ways in which agreed objectives can be obtained, but this is not an agreed objective. I am delighted that so many members of the TGWU have in fact abided by the guidelines issued to them from their head office. But the fact remains that there are many who are not abiding by it, and there is no question but that in future industrial disputes there can be no guarantee whatever that a code of practice of this sort would be adhered to by those taking part in industrial strike action. But I add this. The unions for their part have said in terms that they are not there to police codes of practice of this nature; they are indeed quite incapable structurally of doing so.

The second suggestion that was made in the Government's consultative document on this subject is that the code of practice should be given more force by being adopted by Parliament, whereupon it would have the status, as it were, of the Highway Code, so that the rules in the code of practice could be cited in court where proceedings were taken. Again that seems to me to be a misapprehension of the whole position. The rules in the Highway Code are invaluable in court in deciding cases, for example, of careless or reckless driving. But there is no such offence as, for example, unreasonable picketing, and I believe it would be very undesirable to seek to create one. I cannot see how in the course of proceedings under the existing law, for example, for obstructing the police or assaulting the police, or whatever it may be, the rules in the code of practice that I have indicated would be relevant on more than a minute number of occasions. It does not seem to me, therefore, that adopting a code of practice in that way as part of our rules would be of any assistance.

Thirdly, it might be possible to rely on the civil law. I find it again difficult to see how this exclusively can be an adequate remedy. It is placing employers in an impossible position if the burden of en- I forcing the law is placed on their shoulders 1640 exclusively when it really ought to be upon the shoulders of the community as a whole. It means that it must endanger their internal industrial relations in future, and it has, of course, also the very real objection to which the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell referred, that the timelag is bound to be so great that it cannot be effective in dealing immediately with any breach of the rules.

I therefore come to the reluctant conclusion that the only way of dealing with what I suggest is an urgent and serious problem is in fact by changing the criminal law to give effect to some of the measures which I have ventured to suggest to your Lordships. I know it will be difficult. I know that there are those in the Government who will point out the problems that may arise. But I believe that the difficulties would be overcome if there were the political will to do so, if there were the will to take measures which some trade unionists might find objectionable. I believe that at this particular moment there are many people, inside the unions as well as out, who would not find such measures objectionable and would be happy to see them brought into effect. I do not want to advocate a coalition Government. I do not think my right honourable friend Mr. David Steel ever used those terms, or anything like them. I do believe that there are in all the political Parties at the moment, and among those outside the political Parties, a great many people of goodwill who could cooperate together in ensuring that these reforms are brought about.

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH

My Lords, speaking for the first time, as the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, said, as a free man, at least a free man so far as the last five years are concerned, it is perhaps appropriate that I do in fact follow the noble Lord, because he and I have spent many hours together going through the delights of the Matrimonial Proceedings Bill and the Criminal Law Bill. On this occasion I find myself speaking from this Back Bench on what is in fact I think one of the most serious issues that this country has been confronted with for a very substantial period of time indeed.

Before I go into the substance of my speech I should like to say two things. 1641 In normal circumstances I would say that I shall speak briefly, but I have learned in this House that anyone beginning a speech by assuring his colleagues that he is going to make a short speech always in fact makes an extremely long one. So I therefore deliberately decide not to use that form of words. Secondly, I speak as someone who has had experience over the last five years as Minister of State in the Home Office with direct responsibility for the Police Service. During that period we have spent a very substantial amount of time dealing with this question of picketing, and it is about that that I wish to speak.

In so doing I would say just two other things. First, during the last two and a half years I have had the good fortune of a very close personal relationship with my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, and I want to make it absolutely clear that nothing I say this evening is to be taken either directly or indirectly as any form of criticism of anything that he has done or not done over the last few weeks. Having worked for so long in the Home Office I know what an enormous burden and responsibility the holder of that office carries at a time of serious national crisis, not only carrying out the responsibilities of his own Department, but being chairman of the Cabinet Committee dealing with the emergency situation. He carries a very heavy burden indeed. Secondly, neither do I regard it as particularly dignified—having held office for so long in a Government—to make a speech within three weeks of leaving the Government which implies that one did, in fact, have the most substantial differences with one's colleagues during the whole of the period of one's time in that office. With that by way of introduction I should like to say that I believe that there can be little dispute about the seriousness of the situation with which we are now confronted.

It is not a question simply of the number of disputes which we are facing at present, although that indeed is certainly serious enough. There have been strikes by the water and sewerage workers; by the railways; in road haulage and among local authority employees ranging from ambulancemen to refuse collectors. We have the possibility of strikes in many other key areas of our economy, not least the very real risk of a major confrontation with the National Union of 1642 Mineworkers which has been brought a great deal closer as a result of what I have just read on the taping machines in this House. This is certainly among the most serious series of disputes with which this country has been confronted in the past 50 years. It is certainly arguable that it is the most serious.

I repeat that it is not just a question of the number of disputes, but rather the manner and the mood in which those disputes are being conducted.