House of Commons Hansard Debates for 17 May 1990

New Clause 1

Employer's breach of statutory duty

An industrial tribunal shall have jurisdiction to entertain a claim for unfair dismissal by an employee dismissed for taking part in unofficial industrial action where it finds that the reason for the action was a genuine and reasonable belief by the employee that the employer was acting in breach of

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statutory duty whether in respect of health and safety matters or other matters connected with the terms and conditions of the employees of the employer.'.-- [Mr. Tony Lloyd.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Tony Lloyd (Stretford) : I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd) : With this, it will be convenient to take the following : amendment (a) to the new clause, at end insert

or because the employee or employees were genuinely unaware of action being taken by their union to try and resolve the dispute.'. New clause 4-- Health and Safety --

An employer has no right to dismiss selectively any employee who refuses to work on any site, location, or job which the said employee considers to be dangerous to his health, or involves contact with any substance he has grounds to believe is hazardous to health.'. Amendment (a) to new clause 4, after right' insert

without seeking the advice of the Health and Safety Executive'. New clause 7-- Involvement of Health and Safety Inspectorate In circumstances where an employee refuses to work on any site or job in which he believes there is a danger to his health, a Health and Safety Inspector must be called under such circumstances to inspect the site or job, from whom a formal safety declaration will be required before any work resumes.'.

New clause 8-- Safety Committees --

(1) Every employer shall be required to establish a safety committee at his place of work to which his employees shall elect representatives.

(2) The safety committee, which shall comprise equal numbers of employer and employee representatives, shall, by majority vote, have the authority to suspend work where it believes there is a risk of harm or serious injury to employees or to ancillary workers. (3) The suspension of work shall remain in force until the alleged hazard has been inspected by a Health and Safety Inspector and a formal declaration by the Health and Safety Inspector that the hazard has been removed.'.

Amendment No. 19, in clause 7, page 7, line 26, after (1)', insert

save where matters of health and safety are concerned.'. Amendment No. 24, in page 7, line 37, at end add--

(c)

(The action is being taken by employees who genuinely believe that their employer is in breach of statutory duty in respect of health and safety matters.'.

Mr. Lloyd : As the Minister of State knows, because the pattern is familiar to us--and I believe it would be fair to say that he has no reputation to lose--the clauses in the Bill to which we took the strongest exception are those dealing with unofficial action. We particularly object to the concept of selective dismissal for the crime, in the Government's eyes, of taking unofficial industrial action. The Government also seek to take away any protection whatsoever from a person sacked for that reason in respect of recourse to an industrial tribunal. That represents a further significant move away from any semblance of fairness.

We have raised that issue on a number of occasions but received no satisfactory answer. Employees who felt compelled, in order to maintain a health and safety regime at their place of work, to take a form of industrial action might find themselves threatened with the loss of their jobs, and would have no protection under present law. We have already established in general terms that the very interests that the Government prayed in aid as in need

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of protection against such action have said that they do not want it. I refer in particular to the reaction of London Regional Transport. The strikes on the underground were one motive for the Government's rush into this legislation. LRT made it clear that it felt that this part of the Employment Bill was useless and would be counter- productive to good industrial relations.

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On numerous occasions we told the Government that people had been forced to take industrial action in defence of health and safety. One illustration that I gave to the Minister was the strike on the Isle of Grain site in the Thames estuary, when people producing concrete linings for the channel tunnel project took industrial action because the company refused the request for a permanent staff nurse on site. Although there was industrial action, there was no interruption of the contract of employment by management and nothing that the Minister could use in his defence to say that management were outside the scope of the legislation. The workers who took strike action in February 1989 would have been liable to selective dismissal had the rules in the Bill been in force. The Bill would have allowed management to pick off the ring leaders of the strike.

In Committee, the Minister's defence was that people wishing to take unofficial industrial action already had legal rights if management operated an unsafe health and safety regime, as it had therefore abrogated its contract of employment with the work force ; therefore, the clauses Nos. 1 and 4 would not have any impact. The Opposition has taken a considerable amount of advice on the issue, and the Minister has already seen some of it. He knows that there is no reputable legal argument to sustain the view put forward by the Government in Committee. The Minister may want to pray in aid other sources of information, but I think that legal opinion is unanimous in the view that the law is clear about what constitutes unofficial industrial action.

In Committee, the case of Power Casemakers Limited v. Faust established that when judging unofficial industrial action as defined in the two new clauses, the employers' or employees' motivation does not need to be taken into consideration. What is relevant is whether the employer was in breach of his contract with his employees when unofficial action was taken. The Minister looks puzzled, but we have pointed this out on a number of occasions, and I am surprised that the arguments still puzzle him. This issue is central to the Minister's case and it is central to our case, because he is wrong, and that exposes people in their workplace to injury and to losing their jobs if they seek recourse to industrial action to protect themselves.

At the moment, much attention is focused on the channel tunnel. It is a pity that the Secretary of State has chosen to absent himself from the debate. I was pleased to see him driven from his inertia on health and safety last week. He did something positive about the disgraceful accident rate in the tunnel. If Conservative Members feel that that is not the case, perhaps they would like to say what the Minister has done in the past when people have been dying. I do not think that Conservative Members are in any position to argue that case, because the Minister did nothing until he was driven to it by the considerable criticism of the tunnel company in the press.

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I have been asking about this issue for some time. I wish to draw the House's attention to a log book for locomotive drivers working in the tunnel. One driver's comment was :

"The warning beacon obstructs the view to the rear. If somebody is killed as a result of poor visibility to the rear it will be blamed on the driver. These beacons are put in a ludicrous position right in the driver's field of vision Move them before somebody is hurt or killed".

The same point is made time and again in the log books. They are available to the company ; they are the company's log books. However, nothing is done.

Ironically, one of the locomotive drivers was sacked yesterday by Transmanche Link. He drove one of the vehicles which are considered to be unsafe. The company claims that he had refused to take instructions about where he was to work and it suspended him. He went through a four-stage disciplinary hearing, which found him guilty of indiscipline. That may be the case, but he claims that he was dismissed because he was a safety representative and because he had refused to work in conditions which he thought to be unsafe. The point at issue is that, as the law stands, that man has the opportunity to claim that he was unfairly dismissed, but once the Bill comes into force, if the company can argue that he was taking industrial action or refusing to work, because it would be classed as unofficial action, he could be dismissed without recourse to a tribunal. There would have been no examination of the rights or wrongs of the case.

We know that work in the channel tunnel is unsafe. Even the Secretary of State is concerned about that now. One reason is there is considerable pressure on workers to put progress before safety, with the result that there has been a high accident and death rate. If we take away workers' rights to defend themselves by having recourse to some form of industrial action, the Minister will once again put lives at risk in the tunnel. I insist that the Minister deals with that issue when he responds to the debate.

Legal opinion is firmly on our side in this matter. In Committee and on Second Reading the Minister said that it was not his intention to make life more difficult for people in the workplace as regards health and safe working conditions. If that is the case, the modest amendments that we have tabled would not undermine the two clauses dealing with unofficial industrial action but would give recourse to an industrial tribunal--in new clause 1--so that it could decide whether health and safety issues had been a factor in dismissals. We are not asking the Minister to rip up the Bill or that part of it which deals with unofficial action. We are building into the Bill a simple defence so that workers will not feel that the only way that they can protect themselves is by using industrial action to guarantee that they and their workmates are not put at unnecessary risk.

It would be simple for the Minister to accept the new clauses as a minimum form of safety standard. If he does that he will have the support of the whole House, but if he does not, he must examine the consequences for people at work. He will be jeopardising their position and putting them at risk of injury or ultimately, as we have seen in the channel tunnel, of death.

Mr. John P. Smith (Vale of Glamorgan) : I agree implicitly with my hon. Friend's argument about people at work. This issue could also affect the public in some circumstances. Earlier he referred to London Regional

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Transport and British Rail. The increase in the number of near misses and cases of overshooting red lights reported by British Rail is worrying. Train drivers involved could take action to improve the situation. I am not saying that they will have to do that, but I can see that sometimes there is a need for them to do so, and that would benefit the public. By introducing a restriction on such workers, we put the public at risk.

Mr. Lloyd : My hon. Friend makes a fair point. It is not only workers who can be involved in accidents. Last weekend, two young children in my constituency got on to British Rail property and were electrocuted by touching the overhead line. The question now is whether British Rail was negligent, but that has to be established. However, my hon. Friend is right : had an employee taken action to protect those young children, he would have acted in a socially responsible way but, without the addition of the new clauses, it would have put him outside the provisions of the Bill.

Amendment (a), tabled by the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South-West (Mr. Madel), to new clause 1 seeks to extend the scope of the new clause. It provides for recourse to an industrial tribunal if

"the employee or employees were genuinely unaware of action being taken by their trade union to try and resolve the dispute." There is merit in the amendment. It is a reasonable defence. If the Minister were to say that he is prepared to accept the new clause but not the amendment, we should have to reconsider our position. However, I hope that the Minister will recognise the logic of accepting both new clause 1 and amendment (a).

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Tim Eggar) : On Second Reading and in Committee we made it clear that we accept some of the concerns that have led to the tabling of the new clauses and their related amendments, since they are inspired by a genuine desire to ensure that health and safety standards at workplaces are maintained or improved. The Government fully share that aim. We would not propose legislation that we believed would in any way undermine those standards. We are totally committed to the health and safety arrangements that have been established by law. It is a non-partisan matter. We agree entirely that nothing should put those arrangements at risk.

A degree of common ground should exist and, I believe, does exist over health and safety matters. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, governing health and safety matters, was drawn up by a former Conservative Government and enacted by a subsequent Labour Government. The Act placed the prime responsibility for health and safety fairly and squarely on the shoulders of employers, with the co-operation of their employees. That legislation was rightly recognised to be a milestone in helping to secure and improve health and safety standards in this country, and it is generally well regarded internationally.

The Act is kept under review by the tripartite Health and Safety Commission, which can propose improvements if it decides that they are needed. It is, and will continue to be, unlawful to work or to be asked to work in unsafe conditions. No employee, by definition, can be required by his employer to do something unlawful. The Bill does absolutely nothing to change that. At times in Committee, and during the hon. Gentleman's speech, it was implied

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that the effect and purpose of the Bill was to undermine the high standards for health and safety standards at work. That is not the case.

Mr. John Evans (St. Helens, North) : The Minister has uttered fine words about the 1974 Act. He says that he appreciates the concern expressed by the Opposition, particularly in Committee. Will he accept the intention behind one of the amendments and incorporate it in clause 7? If he does not accept the intention which underlines one of the amendments--the Minister can choose which one to accept--his fine words will be meaningless, and events in the next two years, as cases come to light, will show that his words were meaningless. 6.15 pm

Mr. Eggar : I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear with me as I hope to deal with the effect of the new clauses. These are serious and difficult matters. I hope that, by the time I sit down, I shall have explained to the hon. Gentleman why the Government have difficulty with the proposals.

The issue debated in Committee was technical--whether simple refusal to do unsafe work could be regarded as taking industrial action. We have considered that question carefully, and our conclusion is clear and unequivocal. The Government are absolutely confident that no court or tribunal has found, or would find, that simple refusal to do unsafe work amounts to taking industrial action. It follows that, if an employee simply refuses to do work that he believes to be unsafe and is dismissed, an industrial tribunal has, and will continue to have, jurisdiction to determine whether that dismissal was fair or unfair.

The legislation on unfair dismissal was enacted by the last Labour Government. That legislation, which made the dismissal of strikers fair in certain circumstances, made no special provision for refusal to work on grounds of health and safety. If there was no need for such a provision then, there is no need now.

Mr. Dave Nellist (Coventry, South-East) : Leaving aside the last Employment Bill, now an Act, that made provision for deposits to get into the industrial tribunal system, industrial tribunals cannot order a company to take a worker back into employment. If a worker knows that, although he can find his way through the maze of industrial tribunal legislation he will not get his job back, he will still knuckle under, believing that he must do as he is told if he is to keep his job. That is happening now on the Channel tunnel project.

Mr. Eggar : The hon. Gentleman is not dealing with the point at issue, which has been discussed at some length--whether simple refusal to do work in unsafe conditions amounts to industrial action. That is a critical question. If it is held to be industrial action, the Bill will affect the right of referral to industrial tribunals. If--as is our position--a simple refusal to do work is not industrial action, the position will be as it has always been and it will be totally unaffected by the Bill.

Mr. Tony Lloyd : The Minister has chosen his words carefully. He says that he is sure that a simple refusal to do work would not constitute industrial action. That, as he knows, is a contentious statement. There are those who disagree with his view. As there is doubt, it is incumbent on

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the Minister to ensure that the law says precisely what he claims that it says. He ought not to allow the matter ultimately to be tested in the courts.

The Minister must also define what he means by simple refusal. For example, would an overtime ban in support of a health and safety measure constitute simple refusal to do work, or would it constitute industrial action? The overwhelming legal opinion is that it would constitute industrial action. If the Minister is saying that in those circumstances he believes that people should lose their jobs, he should make it clear at the Dispatch Box.

Mr. Eggar : The case that the hon. Gentleman has postulated would have to be decided on the facts. He quoted the Faust case, but the Faust judgment made it clear that people would know industrial action when they saw it--in other words, it would have to be decided on the facts.

Mr. Wallace : My point follows the question raised by the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd). Is not the effect of not accepting the amendments and not clarifying the position to put another barrier in the way of an employee who is dismissed and who then has to take the case to a tribunal to determine, first, whether the tribunal has jurisdiction before it can decide the fairness or unfairness of the dismissal? The fact that the law as it stands gives the tribunal no automatic jurisdiction must be a disincentive to test the system. I know that the Minister's concern about health and safety at work is genuine, but the Government would lose nothing by accepting the new clause, at least in principle, and getting rid of the doubt.

Mr. Eggar : I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not give way again. That is not meant in any way as a discourtesy, but I am aware of the time. I hope that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) will bear with me as I develop the argument. In practice, the difficulty revolves around the problem of how one defines industrial action. It has been the view of successive Governments--the last Labour Government and the present

Government--that it is extremely difficult to define industrial action and that the best solution is to leave it to industrial tribunals, and if necessary the Court of Appeal, to decide in the light of the facts of any particular case. I understand the appeal of seeking to define industrial action and we have considered the matter in considerable detail, but we do not believe that it is necessarily the right course.

Mr. Blair : Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Eggar : I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I said that I would not give way again. I hope that he will have a chance to make his point, and I shall be happy to answer it. It is far from obvious that simply stopping work is always the right course for an employee who genuinely believes that working conditions are unsafe. Except in a minority of cases in which there is or is believed to be some real, immediate and serious risk of personal injury, there are other options--for example, employees can take matters up with their local health and safety inspector. The hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) referred to a conflict of legal views. Earlier this afternoon, the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) was kind enough to let me have a legal opinion. I do not consider that that strengthens his case. If he looks at the questions that were

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asked of learned counsel in that opinion, he will realise that he asked the wrong questions. Question 3 relates to industrial action, but the issue is whether a simple refusal to carry out unsafe work constitutes industrial action. I can only recommend that Opposition Members read the first page of that opinion and the third question that was asked. They will find that they asked the wrong question. It is not surprising that, the wrong question having been asked, the answer does not address the issue before the House--that is, whether a simple refusal to work on health and safety grounds constitutes industrial action. Our view is that it does not.

Mr. Blair : We have to clarify that. After all, most hon. Members consider that if there is a serious difference, the sensible course would be to remove any area of doubt instead of leaving it to someone to go to a tribunal some time later. Our adviser was asked whether a stoppage of work for health and safety reasons would constitute unofficial industrial action, and the answer was that it would be unofficial industrial action irrespective of the reasons or motivation behind the stoppage.

Mr. Eggar : That exactly proves my point. That is not the question at issue between us. I am perplexed that the hon. Gentleman has not yet focused on whether a simple refusal to carry out unsafe work would be industrial action. Our view--it was clearly and explicitly stated in Committee and I have explained the matter to the hon. Gentleman in person-- is that a simple refusal to do unsafe work would not be industrial action. That is the issue that we have been debating.

Mr. John Evans : Will the Minister give way on that point?

Mr. Eggar : No, I must address the new clauses and amendments proposed by the Opposition.

The new clauses and amendments go well beyond the essentially technical issues discussed in Committee. As I have already said, a simple refusal to work in unsafe conditions will not make employees liable to selective dismissal without the right to have a tribunal determine the unfairness of any such dismissal, but new clause 1 and amendments Nos. 19 and 24 seek to go very much further. In a nutshell, those Opposition amendments and new clauses seek to carve out some special protection for unofficial strikers, and the net result would be a charter for unofficial action.

New clause 1 gives the game away by stating that industrial tribunal jurisdiction to determine the fairness of dismissal is to remain even if unofficial strikers are selectively dismissed for taking action about other matters.

Clearly, that goes well beyond health and safety concerns, and the hon. Gentleman recognises that.

Amendments Nos. 19 and 24 would undermine the intended effect of clause 7, as they would allow any unofficial striker who was selectively dismissed to get round the law simply by claiming that he had some health and safety concern. New clause 4 would mean that any employee who refused to work and subsequently claimed that he considered his work to be unsafe would have a right not to be selectively dismissed. That would apply even if it were patently obvious that the employee was taking industrial action, even if it was unofficial action, at

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the time of his dismissal. In other words, the

amendments--individually or collectively--would drive a coach and horses through the present law on dismissal, let alone the new law on unofficial action in clause 7.

Similarly, new clauses 7 and 8 seek to upset the well established and effective balance of responsibility set out in the Health and Safety At Work, etc. Act 1974. Those new clauses would unduly direct responsibility away from employers and employees and on to inspectors, which would seriously damage the effectiveness of inspectors in ensuring compliance with health and safety law.

We believe that health and safety problems should be resolved by employers, who have the primary legal responsibility in co-operation with the employees who may be affected. Leaving everything to be decided by the inspectors, as is proposed, would remove the employers' incentive to assess and deal with workplace risks. If employers do not deal satisfactorily with health and safety problems, employees are and will remain free to contact their local health and safety inspector--in confidence, if they feel that that is appropriate. I need not remind the House that inspectors can visit without warning and can order work to be stopped if there is a risk of serious injury.

A proliferation of committees, as proposed by new clause 8, would not work in this role, and such committees would inevitably conflict with the joint committees, statutory and voluntary, which already exist to monitor health and safety measures in individual workplaces.

The key points of our concern about the new clauses and amendment No. 19 are that it is, and will continue to be, unlawful to work or to be asked to work in unsafe conditions, and no employee can be required by his employer to do something unlawful. If an employee simply refused to do work that he believed to be unsafe, he would not be taking industrial action. Thus, an industrial tribunal would have jurisdiction to determine whether dismissal was fair or unfair. No court and no tribunal has ever found that simple refusal to do unsafe work amounts to industrial action. Legislation on unfair dismissal enacted by the last Labour Government which made dismissal of strikers fair made no special provision for refusal to work on grounds of health and safety.

This has been a useful exchange on a complicated and technical matter. I remain convinced that there is nothing incompatible between our commitment to maintaining high health and safety standards and the measures in the Bill to provide effective remedies and to deter unofficial industrial action.

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Mr. John Evans : The Opposition amendments seek only to ameliorate the impact of clause 7. Like my hon. Friends, I regard the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South-West (Mr. Madel) as helpful and I support them.

This is an obnoxious Bill, and clause 7 is the offensive part of it. Indeed, the measures that the Government are introducing are the type of trade union legislation that is being swept away by eastern European countries as they find their freedom. The Minister knows as well as I do that legislation of this type was inflicted on the workers by dictator Ceausescu of Romania and is being cast aside as the Romanian people attain freedom.

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Clause 7 would remove the right of workers participating in any unofficial action to appeal to a tribunal on the ground of unfair dismissal. It would also remove their statutory rights to, for example, redundancy payments and pregnancy leave. The Government have become muddled. They continually confuse unofficial strikes with unofficial action. The Green Paper entitled "Unofficial Action and The Law" referred in paragraphs 1.2, 1.3, 1.5 and 1.14 to unofficial strikes and unofficial action in almost the same breath.

Hon. Members, particularly on the Opposition Benches, with experience of industrial affairs will be aware that unofficial strikes are generally spontaneous acts, such as walking off the job, whereas unofficial action can take a variety of forms, including a sit-down strike, a ban on overtime, a work to rule or a refusal to work in dangerous or unsafe places, with unsafe tools and equipment or with unsafe or dangerous materials and substances.

I am particularly worried to note that a senior Minister believes that no worker in Britain is ever asked to work in unsafe conditions or with unsafe tools or materials and that no arguments ever occur over such matters. I assure him, having spent my working life in shipyards and ship repair yards --the Minister seems to be indicating dissent ; he has never worked in such places--that people do work in conditions that are highly dangerous and often unsafe.

The weakness in the Minister's argument lies in the question of who is to decide when there is a dispute between the work force and the employer over whether a practice, tool or substance is safe or dangerous. Frequently in those circumstances the argument is resolved by the workers simply walking away from the material or job. I am particularly worried about a situation that occurs frequently. When asbestos is found in a place of work where, for example, maintenance work is being undertaken, any worker would immediately walk off that job. Irrespective of the assurances given by the Minister, a worker taking such a step would immediately be at risk of losing his job because of the way in which clause 7 is drafted. That clause enables the employer to choose who to dismiss, and, once dismissed under the terms of clause 7, the employee would have no right to go to a tribunal. A tribunal would not have jurisdiction in such a case. The worker would have been dismissed because he participated in industrial action, and the clause makes it clear that a tribunal would have no jurisdiction in that case. As I said in an intervention, the Minister could remove all our fears by including a provision, similar to that which we recommend in our amendments, relating to health and safety.

We appreciate that the best employers would never find themselves in such a situation, but there are rogue employers who might push workers in certain directions and who in some circumstances would be prepared to do so provocatively, seeking to create a confrontation. That would give an employer the opportunity to sack, for example, shop stewards or people with long service and considerable redundancy rights. An employer would have the right to get rid of pregnant women, who would then lose any rights that had accrued to them. One can envisage circumstances in which companies in financial difficulty would take action to reduce their compensation liabilities. Is it fair or just that workers should be put at risk in such circumstances? Opposition Members have done their

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best to concentrate their remarks on health and safety issues, although many other subjects could be discussed as we debate clause 7.

The Minister repeated what the Under-Secretary of State said in Committee :

"To reassure Opposition Members, I have tried to find out whether, since the unfair dismissal legislation was first introduced in 1971, there have been any recorded cases of industrial action being taken solely on the grounds of health and safety that have led to people being dismissed. Inevitably, it is rather hard to prove a negative, but I have found no instance of it".--[ Official Report, Standing Committee D, 15 March 1990 ; c. 353.]

That is hardly surprising because until now, the individuals concerned would have had the right to appeal to a tribunal on the ground of unfair dismissal. Any employer, even a rogue employer, would have known that he would be derided and laughed out of court the moment it was recognised that health and safety was the issue. Unless the Minister amends the legislation, either here or in another place, to protect workers by statute in health and safety cases, clause 7 will cause the Government considerable problems. The clause is specific. Any individual taking part in unofficial industrial action immediately exposes himself to selective dismissal. That will happen, as the Minister knows. I only hope that in the Lobbies tonight, Tory Members know what they are voting for.

Mr. David Madel (Bedfordshire, South-West) : I wish to address my remarks to amendment (a) to new clause 1 and amendment (a) to new clause 4. I assume that my hon. Friend the Minister will have a few words to say about them. He said that there had been an interesting exchange : Front- Bench Members may have had an interesting exchange, but we are only now getting going on the group of amendments. I shall not take up too much time, as I am conscious that other hon. Members wish to speak.

New clause 1 states :

"An industrial tribunal shall have jurisdiction to entertain a claim for unfair dismissal".

That does not necessarily mean that such a claim would be successful. If new clause 1 is passed with amendment (a) tacked on to it, industrial tribunals will take on a somewhat new role with a pre-hearing capacity. However, there is nothing strange or unusual about changing the nature and function of industrial tribunals. Industrial tribunals have been with us since 1964. There was a major change in 1971 and there may be major changes in the future. The first advantage of accepting amendment (a) would be that there would be encouragement for trade unions to get closer to their members if unofficial strike action was taken. Amendment (a) is designed to try to stop unofficial action getting out of control and to reduce to the bare minimum the danger of misunderstandings between trade unions and their members. It is also designed to encourage trade unions to intervene quickly and to let their members know that they are so intervening if unofficial action takes place or if it appears to members of the trade union that a grievance has not been dealt with quickly. It is also designed to try to put a brake on rash and hasty decisions by management which could occur if the Bill is passed unamended.

I do not wish to rehearse all the arguments that I made in Committee. I have already drawn attention to the wording that must be used in the letter from a trade union

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to its members. I remain opposed to the way in which the words are written down, and to their tone and content. The letter must say : "Your union has repudiated any call for industrial action ... If you are dismissed you will have no right to complain of unfair dismissal."

That is not the language of industrial relations in the 1990s. It is too far removed from reality and too much like first world war generals barking orders to those on the ground. It would have been perfectly possible to change those words and still put the onus on the trade unions to intervene quickly to settle the grievance and on those taking unofficial action to cease taking it while the trade union tried to sort out the problem.

The most serious problem about new clause 1 is that it would take away the right of an individual to go to an industrial tribunal and for his case at least to be heard. In the often confused situation of an unofficial strike, there may be sudden dismissal of one or two people. To take away the right for a case to be looked at is neither reasonable nor correct. The Government have lost a sense of balance on the matter. I urge them to accept amendment (a) or to draft a provision similar to it in the other place.

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New clause 4, as at present drafted, could lead to

misunderstandings, and it gives a great deal of freedom to the individual employee. It uses the words :

"which the said employee considers to be dangerous to his health". It is common sense that we should put on some brake before people walk off the job because they consider the conditions to be unsafe. The channel tunnel and the accidents there have already been mentioned and the Opposition have already said that they propose to raise the matter further. Amendment (a) would lead to an avoidance of unnecessary confrontations between management and unions on the most important aspect of work--health and safety conditions. Under new clause 4, unofficial action would still be possible. The new clause could refer not only to one, but to two or three people whose selective dismissal could lead to widespread unofficial industrial action, and matters could soon become out of control.

Amendment (a) is designed to achieve three objectives. First, it is designed to ensure that when there is an argument between employers and employees about safety at work, the advice of the Health and Safety Executive must be sought at once. That does not mean that the employer necessarily has to accept its advice, although it is hard to imagine that, if there was clear advice that the conditions were unsafe, an employer would be likely to brush aside the advice of the Health and Safety Executive. For that reason, it would be up to the employer to say to the employee, "You are dissatisfied and you consider that the working conditions are dangerous--I am seeking the advice of the Health and Safety Executive now and I expect that there will then be tripartite discussions between the Health and Safety Executive, the employer and the employee."

Secondly, amendment (a) would give greater reassurance to employees who feel that they may be working in dangerous conditions that their anxieties would be dealt with quickly. Again, that would calm down industrial relations and give individual employees a greater sense of

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security in their work. Thirdly, amendment (a) is relevant to young people in their first job. Such people are reluctant to start an argument with an employer about whether conditions are safe or not. Amendment (a) would give greater protection to young employees. It would also give greater protection to female employees who might be equally unwilling and afraid to start an argument with an employer about safety conditions at work. More and more employers are seeking more and more women employees today. With the change to separate taxation, more women will seek employment. That puts an extra responsibility on Parliament to ensure that the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 is carried out properly and that there is no deterrent for women employees if they are concerned about conditions at work.

Science and technology change all the time. New substances constantly appear and there is a whole mass of information on new substances at work. Again, that could lead to somebody saying, "I am sorry, I am not satisfied with the handling of this substance--I must ask that the Health and Safety Executive look at it before I go on with my work." Amendment (a) to new clause 4 would strengthen the Health and Safety Executive and health and safety committees. It would make employers go into more detail in their annual reports about what they had done about health and safety conditions, which would be all to the good. It would also improve contact between management and employees about a vitally important part of industrial relations.

I have tried to turn a stumbling block into a stepping stone towards better industrial relations. I hope that Ministers will accept the amendments, but if they do not, it will be one of those days on which I must disagree with the Front Bench. The Conservative party is a centre-right coalition--a broad Church--and if there are disagreements between Conservative Members, that is par for the course and something which sometimes happens in Parliament. My amendments seek to clarify the position for individual employees. We should reduce the danger of misunderstandings at work to a minimum, as they can lead to unofficial industrial action, and once that starts it is difficult to control.

Mr. Leighton : It is a great pleasure to follow such a thoughtful speech as that of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South-West (Mr. Madel). I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) made a persuasive case for the new clause. I also congratulate my hon. Friends on the first-class job that they did in Committee. If employees find that they are in danger and take certain actions, are they protected? I have heard what the Minister has said, and the different legal opinions. At best, this is a grey area : the reasons why employees had taken certain actions could be disputed. For example, an employer could say that they had acted for one reason, while they could say that they had acted for health and safety reasons. Who is to decide?

The new clause says that an industrial tribunal should have jurisdiction to decide whether those employees had a genuine and reasonable belief. Surely that could be accepted by the House for the avoidance of doubt, for it would make matters clear to everyone. If the Minister accepts that people in such circumstances should have the right to a defence, why does he oppose the new clause?

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