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that cases are heard by judges who need not fear dismissal, it is a cause for the gravest concern when that is not happening and is seen not to be happening.There is broad consensus on the matter among the senior judiciary. That should encourage us in the House to concern ourselves. I do not subscribe to Lord Radcliffe's theory that there is a wisdom, which gathers together all that is best in our national traditions, reposing in the breasts of the judiciary and which is necessary to control the excesses of Parliament. On the contrary, I believe that the rule of law, operated by an independent judiciary, is essential to effective parliamentary government. Without that, our legislation cannot fasten upon the actions of those officials whom it is intended to control. In that matter at least, the interests of the legislature and of the judiciary coincide.
If the warnings go unheeded, that may lead to a loss of confidence in the legal system and to a subtle, but real, change in the balance of the constitution--the beginnings of a slide which it is easier to start than to arrest. The additional cost of a few High Court judges over the cost of deputies is a modest price to pay to prevent those consequences.
4.36 am
Mr. Gerald Bermingham (St. Helens, South) : The hour is late, but the subject is important. I declare an interest, because I have been both a solicitor and a barrister--I practised both at some levels--some minor, some major--and I share great concern about what is happening to our legal system today.
When I was a student, I was taught a very simple lesson--that it was important that the state, or the Executive, was controlled, because sometimes it gets a little bit out of line. It makes mistakes because of the pressure of politics and because of the need for expediency. The judiciary and the courts were there to restrain and control. They were independent and they mattered.
For the judiciary and the courts to restrain and control--if they get it wrong, Parliament can always correct what they do--one must have in place the doctrine of excellence. One must have judges who are of superb integrity, great skill and great learning, and who have been enticed--I use that word because they are enticed by the nature of the office to give up what is often a lucrative and well worthwhile career--into sitting on the Bench. That is worth while and is a career in itself.
In the past 10 to 15 years, those of us who practise have seen, from time to time, because of pressure, because of shortage of manpower and because the courts are not always manned properly--and I am not as kind as my right hon. and learned Friend when I say this--hurried judgments, strain and people who are not quite up to it being asked to perform functions and duties for which they are not yet ready. It is sad.
When the Lord Chief Justice made his speech recently about the shortage on the High Court Bench, he was right. It is sometimes silly to deny the Bench the manpower that it needs. There is no doubt that in our increasingly complicated society, issues come before the courts that require more and more judicial hours. I put the matter as simply as that.
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One cannot ask the Bench to cope with the existing workload, but, to a mere practitioner, that seems to be happening. In cases of judicial review one is told that one might get a hearing in year's time. I do not practise in that area, but if something needs to be tested, why cannot it be tested now? The answer is simple--there are not the judges available to do it.Major fraud cases and cases involving murder, robbery or rape are now heard before a circuit judge. I do not intend any disrespect to that judge, but for something that serious one should have the most experienced judge from the High Court to try it. Sometimes rulings are wrong and the circuit judge's experience is not great enough to deal with the problem. That may lead to a miscarriage of justice and someone being incarcerated for years until the matter is reviewed on appeal and something changes. A civilised society cannot afford such a mistake.
What on earth are we doing? The Lord Chief Justice said that he needed perhaps 11 more judges. That is not an awful lot, but it would mean that the High Court Bench was to be staffed adequately. Is it right that those who exercise a judicial capacity at that level, who are subject to that type of stress, should be pushed to the nth degree through the case load that they face? Why is it that we cannot have the appropriate number of judges? What is the Executive seeking to do?
In the past I have been criticised for commenting on Mold Crown court, which is a nice court. Why cannot we have a visiting High Court judge in that part of the world? He could deal with the murders, the manslaughters and the more serious cases, including serious civil matters. Why is that not possible? Is it because we do not have enough judges?
When a High Court judge visits a court, what does he bring to it? He brings the experience that he has gained from visits to other places. I am not seeking to be unkind when I suggest such a breath of fresh air. Such outside influence does no harm to the local circuit judiciary--they welcome it. Such visits would bring new thinking. If we continue as we are, that will no longer happen.
What will the future hold? Perhaps we will have legal circuits, if that is the right word--areas in which no outside influence is brought to bear. In such circumstances everyone can get too cosy, which is not a good idea. The object of the circuit system was that judges should move about so that they learnt about different parts of the country and about things that mattered. They brought experience from area to area. That helped the circuit and the legal system. Our society is becoming more complex and the way in which we deal with things is becoming more difficult. Therefore, we must train the judiciary of tomorrow to meet those needs. Nowadays fraud trials and others may last a year or more. When I was a law student any trial that lasted more than seven days was a miracle--it was unheard of. Now at any Crown court in any part of the country there are three or four-week trials running at any one time. That is the world into which we are moving.
When we ask someone to sit in judgment on a difficult trial that may last five or six weeks, we are putting an enormous strain on them. At the end of a trial on a criminal matter they must sum it up to a jury. Complicated civil cases may involve weeks and weeks of detailed argument. At the end of the trial the judge must provide an assessment of the merits of argument A against those of
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argument B. That requires infinite skill. It requires a career structure in the judiciary that calls on those who are best able to sit in judgment.I regret to say that nowadays the doctrine of excellence is beginning to slip. Instead of encouraging, recruiting and developing the judiciary, we seem to be restricting and restraining it. To say that we are using cheap measures would be an insult to those who sit and I would not wish to insult any of them, because they all seem to do their best, but if we are to cope with a difficult society tomorrow, we must encourage the lawyers of today. It passes by people like me, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer), my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) and the hon. and learned Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Ground), but we have a duty to the future and we must encourage people to seek such office. By restricting the High Court Bench and seeking to diminish the scope of the areas in which people can practise we, in turn, diminish the number of applicants who will wish to follow that path. That will be a tragedy because, in the past five or six centuries, we have built in this land a judicial system which is the envy of many. If the Government of the day--the Government of tomorrow may not think in the same way--seek to restrict simply by compacting the scope of the lawyers of tomorrow and, perhaps, the ambitions of tomorrow, we shall give future society a poor deal.
I hope that the Solicitor-General will take on board--it is meant in the kindest possible way--the fact that penny-pinching in the servicing of the High Court Bench today builds a disaster in our judicial system tomorrow. I urge him to encourage the Lord Chancellor to think a little more broadly. It might not be a bad thing if he realised that encouraging an increasing number of people to go to the High Court Bench would serve our society of tomorrow well. 4.47 am
Mr. John Fraser (Norwood) : If I congratulated my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) on getting a debate at 4.20 in the morning, my congratulations might be less than enthusiastic, so I shall not pursue that traditional line. However, he makes an important point and I was surprised at the figures that he gave, which suggested that between half and all the cases in the non-jury list may be heard by part- time deputy judges. That high proportion must give rise to concern. My right hon. and learned Friend also said--he made the point with considerable force--that judges who, although they are deputy judges, regularly hear cases in the High Court have no security of tenure. That seems to be wrong when the balances are as he described.
The Opposition have said time and again that it is important that business in the High Court and in county courts--I hope that there will be no competition between them--must be conducted efficiently and expeditiously, because justice delayed is far too often justice denied. Incidentally, that principle of expeditious business conducted by first-class judges applies not only at the top but at the level, for instance, of masters and summonses in the High Court. It is outrageous that a case in which there may be no meritorious defence, and which proceeds under Order 14, may take four or five months to move from the issue of the
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writ--now called the acknowledgement of service--to when Order 14 proceedings can be heard in chambers, even if it is a short case. That puts a premium on holding up cases simply for the chance of winning time. Therefore, I want to see improvements in that sector and at every level, including the taxation of costs--a matter which is important to both solicitors and counsel, but counsel say less about it.It is disgraceful, particularly in relation to legal aid cases, that a case may have been conducted for several years, have to wait one year in the list to be heard and then those involved in it have to wait between six months and a year for the costs to be taxed. Matters are not always conducted efficiently. What has been said about judges, expedition and quality must apply across the spectrum. We do not want the Government to solve the problem of a shortage of judges in the High Court simply by transferring more and more business into the county court and creating log- jams and problems there, so as to avoid them in the High Court.
Will the Solicitor-General confirm that no attempt will be made to reduce the number of cases coming before the Crown Office? There have been murmurings that some judges want the number of cases coming before judicial review reduced. There are a number of ways of achieving that. We could have a tougher sieving process when getting leave for judicial review. Another suggestion, opposed by the Lord Chancellor, is that legal aid should not be made available for as many cases coming up for judicial review. There is no doubt that the ending of legal advice and green form assistance to those seeking to challenge cases involving immigration and political asylum matters could lead to a reduction in the number of cases going for judicial review simply because it would not then be possible for lawyers to put a case in hand quickly, which is necessary if leave is to be obtained for judicial review. Therefore, I hope that the Solicitor-General will confirm that no attempt will be made to curtail access to the divisional court for those purposes. It is equally important that judicial review cases should proceed quickly. Once leave has been given for judicial review and--if the Crown is the respondent--once the Crown has filed its affidavit, for which it has 56 days, I believe that it could be months, if not a year, before the judicial review case is heard. That is not good because it puts a premium on delay. It is right that bad decisions by immigration officers and the Home Office should come before the courts for review and decision as quickly as possible. It is not helpful for the good administration of law that, when a decision is challenged, a premium is involved in having the matter delayed, with more interest in the delay than in the outcome of the case. That is one of the dangers that we must avoid in judicial review proceedings. I await with interest to hear what the Solicitor-General has to say in response to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West.
4.53 am
The Solicitor-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell) : I must congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer), even in the dog watch, on giving the House the opportunity to debate this important subject, about which anxiety was expressed by the Lord Chief Justice at the recent Mansion House dinner for judges. It gives us an opportunity to consider not only the
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precise number of High Court judges but the strength and deployment of the higher judiciary generally ; the areas of current pressure, in particular the Court of Appeal criminal division and the divisional court ; other areas where, happily, good progress has been made ; the effects to be expected from the implementation of the civil justice review ; questions relating to the effectiveness or otherwise of the use of High Court judges on circuit, and related problems such as the increase and sometimes daunting length of certain types of trial and how they can be overcome.My noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor recognises those problems and the duty of the Government--any Government--to provide an independent judiciary with the resources that it needs to maintain--in vigour--a prompt, efficient and independent judicial system, which is fundamental to our free society. I state that not to gloss the problem but to set out what are the accepted ground rules. Before proceeding to an analysis of the current position, I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the judges of the supreme court and the judiciary generally. At a time when, recently, too many criminal trials have been shown to have given rise to serious miscarriages of justice--and in consequence our whole system of justice is rightly the subject of the review by the royal commission--there has been a tendency in some quarters to use the judges as a scapegoat and to forget that cases must be tried on the evidence. Unless one has been privileged to appear regularly in the courts, it is hard to appreciate the burden of judicial life, and easy to fail to realise that behind the wigs and trumpets and judges' lodgings lie the concentration and sheer strain of the judicial day--constant attention, careful analysis, the burden of long cases, the weight of background reading, the anxiety of setting the right sentence, and generally, for those who undertake this work between the ages of 50 and 75, of life away from home for weeks on end. At different levels, I pay tribute to the patient work of the circuit judges handling a huge variety of smaller cases, developing an understanding of housing matters, of social security, the burden of criminal work on the circuit bench, and to the expertise of district judges whose major input into cases where representation is less expert or, often, non-existent causes such heavy reliance on the court. They deserve our support, appreciation and admiration more often than they get it.
Having said that, we must also remember that resources are finite both in money and in skilled manpower and, therefore, there is a duty on the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice to deploy those resources efficiently and effectively.
The subject of the debate is the number of High Court judges. The fact is that today they are the highest number in our history. They have increased from 31 in 1945 to 42 in 1960, to 75 in 1979, and today, with the imminent appointment of a further High Court judge in the chancery division, to 84. Over the same period the number of Lords Justices of Appeal has risen from six in 1945 to 27 today. The present Lord Chancellor has obtained over the past three and a half years an increase of five High Court judges and four Lords Justices. The increase since 1979 in the numbers of Lords Justices, who are so essential to the
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work of the Court of Appeal criminal division and the divisional court is no less than 50 per cent.--from 18 to the current 27 who are in post. Furthermore, with the civil justice review, much of the civil work of the High Court is being transferred to the county court. In the past 10 years there has been an increase in the number of circuit judges by no less than 110, or 50 per cent., with 49 of them appointed by the present Lord Chancellor.The task is, therefore, to analyse the problem highlighted by the Lord Chief Justice and restated tonight in the debate, and to show what the Government are doing to tackle it. If more High Court judges are necessary, we must not shrink from the problem, but first we must be sure that we have deployed those whom we have to the best effect. I acknowledge straight away that there are pressures in both the Court of Appeal criminal division and the divisional court. The number of cases heard by a full court of the Court of Appeal criminal division has increased from 2,528 in 1979 to 3,627 in 1990, an increase of 43 per cent. over the position 10 years before, but with the number outstanding at the end of the year having been reduced by 12 per cent. Likewise, the number of applications for judicial review has increased markedly in the past few years. In 1990-91, a total of 2,149 cases were disposed of by the divisional court, an increase of 33 per cent. over the previous year.
It is the view of my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor that an extra court is needed in the Court of Appeal criminal division now and that increased resources should be devoted to the divisional court with its heavy workload of judicial review. Incidentally I should make it clear that it is the view of the Law Officers that in our complex society, where there is an ever-increasing need to rely upon secondary legislation, the development of judicial review of administrative action is entirely right and healthy. Although my ministerial colleagues have sometimes suffered its effects, I have never heard any of them suggest that such judicial powers should be curtailed. On the contrary, the response of the Government by means of such publications as "The judge over your shoulder" has been to ensure that departments of state understand better the ambit of their powers and the way that they should be exercised so that rights are respected and the law obeyed as it should be.
The picture is not uniformly gloomy.
Mr. Fraser : The Solicitor-General has paid great respect to judicial review. Is he aware of the rule that is laid down by the Home Office in immigration cases? The Home Office will withhold removal of a person from the United Kingdom for only 48 hours in order to get the case before a judge. Does he not think that that is placing far too great a burden on judges and is effectively denying individuals access to judicial review by setting such a short period between the taking of instructions and getting the matter before a judge?
The Solicitor-General : The hon. Gentleman raises a difficult and important matter, but I am not at all sure that I do hold such a view. As I have said, it is a difficult matter and it is not the subject of the debate. There are competing aspects of the problem and I cannot say that I hold the view that the hon. Gentleman has set out.
Returning to the deployment of the judiciary, the picture is not uniformly gloomy. Waiting times in the
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Queen's Bench division have been reduced to two months on the warned list, 13 months on the fixtures list and seven months on the after-fixtures list. Indeed, the number of outstanding trials in that division has been halved since June 1989. A great deal of judicial effort has gone into clearing that backlog which, I am given to understand, has now reached a level at which it is no longer sensible, or perhaps even possible, to reduce waiting times. In other words, the parties need this sort of time to prepare themselves for the trial.Mr. Bermingham : Does the Solicitor-General agree--I speak with some experience of this field of the law--that 13 months' waiting on the fixtures list in civil matters is far too long? Many years ago I was involved in the settlement of damages in a series of fatal accidents, and I know that families have to wait a long time for settlements. Surely 13 months is far too long and the period should be reduced.
The Solicitor-General : It is difficult to comment on individual cases, but I wonder why a case of settlement of damages requires it to be on the fixtures list when it could be brought on a great deal faster if it simply went on to the warned list.
Mr. Bermingham : If the right hon. and learned Gentleman will listen, I will tell him why. It was a matter of quantum. That cannot always be agreed, and sometimes there is a point of principle in what is meant, for example, by continuing loss or by future potential earnings.
The Solicitor-General : It is difficult to dispute at this time of night, but it is not self-evident why the case had to go into the fixtures list as opposed to the warned list.
The picture in the Crown court, which was causing justified concern just five years ago, is also greatly improved. The waiting time for custody cases in London is shorter than at any time during the past 14 years during which records in the present form have been kept. Since 1979, waiting times have dropped by 31 per cent. or by seven weeks. That is in spite of a doubling of the workload of the Crown court. In this age of rising crime, those figures suggest that, although there is never room for complacency, far from collapsing, the system is coping extremely well with the challenges that face it.
Thus, while the Lord Chancellor is both concerned about and sympathetic to the problems that we are discussing, the House will realise that before he can increase further the number of judges on the High Court bench, he will need to be able to be satisfied that existing resources are being deployed to the best effect that they reasonably can. Two points in particular need to be focused upon. The first is the substantial transfer of work from the High court to the county court under the civil justice review. It will also be remembered that paragraph 82 of the review stated expressly : "It is the leading objective of the Review that the business of the civil courts should be allocated to the various tiers of judiciary in such a way as to ensure that it is handled at the lowest level appropriate to each case."
The second point-- Mr. Archer : The right hon. and learned Gentleman has been most courteous in giving way. Does he recollect the debates in which we both participated on the Courts and Legal Services Bill, when I thought that it was common ground, first, that the county court was not yet ready to absorb more cases and, secondly, that no more cases could be transferred to it until it was ready?
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The Solicitor-General : That is common ground in principle, and it was common ground in fact at that time. However, there has been a very considerable increase in the number of county court judges as circuit judges, as I have already shown from the statistics. There has been a considerable improvement in the deployment of those judges, with trial centres giving an opportunity for much more effective use of those resources. I know that the Lord Chancellor keeps a careful watch on the way that those matters are being progressed. The opportunity for that transfer, which was contemplated by the civil justice review, nevertheless remains.
The second point concerns the deployment of High Court judges on the circuit and the question--I put it no higher than that--whether at present what they find themselves doing represents the best use that can be made of the time, expertise and formidable experience that they can bring to bear.
In the context of the civil justice review I should say something of the widespread use of circuit judges sitting as judges of the High Court in accordance with section 9 of the Supreme Court Act 1981, and the use of silks as deputy judges--a topic of current concern, rightly mentioned by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West. Mention has been made of 58 per cent. of those trying High Court cases in recent weeks falling into one or other of these categories. It is a fair criticism if what is intended as a back-up measure or a valuable training ground for those who may go on themselves to be High Court judges is allowed to become too constant a feature of the lists, but I wish to put the problem into perspective and to link it with the correct deployment of circuit and High Court judges. To put the figures into perspective over a full year, in 1990 --the last full year for which figures are available--55 per cent. of sitting days were sat by High Court judges, 21 per cent. by section 9 circuit judges and the balance of 24 per cent. by the deputies. As a proportion of all High Court sitting days, the proportion of cases tried by other than full High Court judges was rather smaller, but I recognise that the problem is principally to be found in the Queen's bench division.
A significant part of the solution to this problem and to the lightening of the burden on the High Court judiciary of the less heavy civil cases can reasonably be expected to come from the implementation of the civil justice review. Already in 1990--one knows that the transfer must anticipate the actual trial--some 22,959 cases were redirected from the Queen's bench division to the enlarged county court system.
Nevertheless, of the total of 2,489 civil trials heard by the Queen's bench that year, 1,274 of them being heard in the Royal Courts of Justice, some 1,670 or 67 per cent. were claims for personal injury, of which more than a third--578 or 36 per cent.--involved amounts below the new county court threshold of £25, 000 and a further 262 or 21 per cent. fell in the £25,000 to £50,000 band eligible for trial either in the High or county courts. Those figures must be treated with some caution, since not all would be appropriate to be heard by circuit judges, but they show the considerable weight of work that can properly be transferred. That will release not only some High Court judges but a number of senior circuit judges for work including, directly or indirectly, important criminal work out on circuit.
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Mr. Bermingham : Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that in civil matters the problem is not always the sums involved but the legal issues? A case may concern £10,000 or £1 million--it does not matter.The Solicitor-General : I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. As he will have noticed, that is why I astutely said that such figures must be treated cautiously.
The deployment of High Court judiciary on circuit is by no means an easy matter and the questions that I wish to raise are not asked in any spirit of dogmatism. They are matter largely for the Lord Chief Justice and the Deputy Chief Justice who, under our constitution, are responsible for the day-to-day distribution of judicial resources as between the different areas of the Royal Courts of Justice and the circuits. Such matters are among the subjects of their regular meetings with my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor, who, as president of the Supreme Court, retains ultimate responsibility. There is, however, reason to believe that many High Court judges out on circuit do not always find themselves used to the best effect. That seems to be supported by analysis and anecdote. The Lord Chancellor's Department has been not unaware of the difficulty for some time and a careful analysis has been carried out which the Lord Chancellor is looking forward to discussing with the heads of division.
Based on experience in 1990-91, at any given time there are between 22 and 28 High Court judges out on circuit. On this basis, some, at least, of the cases they are to try might be appropriate to a circuit judge of suitable experience. A way of reducing the backlog of cases in the Court of Appeal criminal division and the divisional court may be to transfer back to those areas of greatest need some High Court judges who would otherwise be on circuit, at least for a temporary period.
In summary, therefore, may I say this. My noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor fully recognises the anxiety on this matter. Both the present Government in the past 10 years and my noble and learned Friend during his three and a half years of office have continued the policy of significant increase in the number of the judiciary, marked indeed in the numbers of Lords Justices and circuit judges which have gone up by no less than a third and 50 per cent. respectively since 1979.
My noble and learned Friend fully recognises the burdens on the Court of Appeal criminal division and the divisional court deriving from the increase in judicial review. He is anxious to see extra judicial resources transferred in each of those directions. He is himself considering very carefully the match between the tasks to be carried out and the judicial resources available and looks forward to reflecting carefully on all that has been said in this debate and to continuing to work closely with the higher judiciary to tackle and overcome the problems in whatever way he is satisfied is necessary.
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Trade Union Reform
5.16 am
Mr. Lewis Stevens (Nuneaton) : First, I apologise to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State of Employment for bringing him to the Chamber at such an unearthly hour of the morning.
The topic that I wish to debate is trade union reform. Since 1980 the Government have adopted a step-by-step approach to industrial relations in Britain by means of five Acts which have had considerable success.
The change in approach can be seen in the number of stoppages in recent years and the number of working days lost in industry and in service. In 1990 some 1.9 million working days were lost compared with almost 13 million on average during the 1970s, which is a dramatic change.
There have been important cases, such as the National Union of Railwaymen in 1986 and the Ford workers in 1990, where on a ballot, despite the advice of union leaders, workers have decided not to strike. Since 1980, despite the apparent lack of publicity, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service has been notified of more than 1,000 ballots.
Since the first of the Acts came into force, there has been a great reduction in trade union membership. That is not something about which I would gloat. It is rather sad that people should not look on the trade unions as an important part of their working lives. Perhaps part of the problem is that the unions have not managed to keep themselves attractive. Their functions have tended to become blurred with the passing years. Some of the reasons for their traditional efforts on behalf of their members have disappeared. They have frequently attained some of their early objectives.
The unions fought long and hard to reduce hours of work. I can remember the pride that my father, a shop steward, took in obtaining a reduction in the working week in his company--from 48 to 44 hours--which meant that the workers did not have to work on Saturday mornings any more.
Many grassroots members of trade unions still work as they always have done to obtain the best possible conditions for their people. But their leaders have often created problems.
The success of the legislation of recent years can be seen in the differences brought about in industrial relations and in bringing inward investment to this country. The United Kingdom has become an attractive prospect for companies from overseas. In 1989, 54,000 jobs were created by inward investment--the highest number ever. I doubt whether that could have occurred under the old-fashioned industrial relations set-up.
Unfortunately, some unions are still in the dark ages. According to The Independent , Keva Coombes, the former Labour leader of Liverpool city council, has admitted that
"the roots of the council's problems were the entrenched attitudes of its trade unions, which had not shifted since the 1950s". The unions must bring themselves up to date and make themselves attractive to the membership.
There has been a great shift : whereas trade unions in the private sector used to have the most members, now the public sector unions have the most. There has also been a move away from blue collar unions to white collar unions. Because of changes in the law, the individual has greater
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powers within the union nowadays ; and employers can take action to prevent the worse effects of strikes--yet quite a number of people still, somewhat surprisingly, consider strike action. Only this morning I read in the Daily Mirror --Mr. Patrick Nicholls (Teignbridge) : Why the Daily Mirror ?
Mr. Stevens : Because it was the only available paper. The back page carried the banner headline, "Strike", and continued : "Everybody out, says the PFA."
Even in the world of soccer there seems still to be a tendency to consider striking. Given the problems of the football world I should have thought that that was the last course of action the Professional Footballers Association would want to take--it will hardly be attractive to the players and clubs. I gather that the reason has to do with the proposed super league, which would apparently disadvantage some people--so they are thinking of striking. I do not believe that matters need come to that.
As for the future, there are still one or two changes in trade union legislation that could prove beneficial. In his citizens charter my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister proposed an entirely new legal right for the citizen. Unlawful industrial action, such as an unballoted or political strike in a public service, can currently be challenged by an employer or a member of a union who is called upon to take part in the action. Such strikes have a widespread and devastating effect on the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. Under the new proposal the citizen would have the right to bring legal proceedings to halt any unlawful industrial action affecting services covered by the citizens charter. That will deal with cases in which people are severely affected and will cover people in business or those trying to get to work.
Many trade unions in the private sector have no-strike agreements, which are an important advance in industrial relations. People who work for some public services are not permitted to strike, but perhaps workers in those services should consider voluntary acceptance of the fact that strike action should form no part of their armoury for carrying out negotiations. Pay review bodies, which were introduced by the Government, have taken away the likelihood of strikes.
I read in The Sunday Times about the sacking of the chief of the National Union of Journalists. The report said :
"For subscriptions of up to £165 a year, among the highest in the trade union movement, members have complained that they get little more than a laminated press card and a newspaper that spouts left-wind ideology."
Surely the purpose of trade unions is service to their members. Earlier I spoke about the leadership of trade unions. The report in The Sunday Times says :
"Turner, formerly letters editor at the Mirror , sees himself as the champion of working journalists standing up to professional trade unionists more interested in bickering than bylines."
That suggests that some trade unions do not properly serve their members.
We should examine further three areas that need reform. The law calls for a ballot before industrial action can take place, but there should be a period of perhaps a week before a strike can occur. Such a delay is commonly called a cooling-off period, but during that time frustration could grow. My reason for calling for such a period is that
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it would enable people to reflect on the effects of what might take place. That could be taken into account by individuals and companies and other groups who could then try to establish how to meet their various needs without resorting to industrial action. That would be of considerable advantage. It seems only fair play to give people a breathing space to adjust their needs.There could also be reform on the right of people to join a trade union of their choice. This still creates some problems. There are still inter-union rivalries. No doubt some of the new arrangements such as no-strike agreements have developed because they are usually tied up with single union agreements. We know that a number of unions have been involved in some rather unseemly squabbles and that the Trades Union Congress has threatened to expel its largest union, the Transport and General Workers Union, for poaching members from two other unions--the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the National Union of Public Employees. The desire to join the union of one's choice is not unreasonable. The laws that we have passed over the past 12 years have given trade union members a great number of freedoms and it would be reasonable to give people the right to join the trade union of their choice. That might encourage some to rejoin or join the trade union movement.
The third area where change can take place is the basic area of agreements between trade unions and employers, which at the moment are not enforceable in law. It would not be a bad thing if we moved to a system similar to those of other countries, so that such agreements are enforceable in law, although only with the agreement of both parties. It is odd that many contracts are enforceable in the courts, although people do not always insist on enforcement and may come to a mutual agreement, when this one is not. I cannot see why, as we move into new areas of trade union and employer relations, we cannot make that change.
Mr. Tony Lloyd (Stretford) : The hon. Gentleman talks about agreements being enforceable in law. He may be aware that there was an exchange between the Minister and myself some months ago about the situation at Rolls-Royce, where the management arbitrarily threatened to tear up the contracts of employment of all its employees, without any notification or negotiation. Does he think that such agreements should be enforceable in law? Where a trade union has been recognised as the legitimate negotiating body over many years, but the employer arbitrarily tears up negotiating rights, should that be enforceable in law?
Mr. Stevens : It is open. If we agreed that the contract should be enforceable in law, it should be binding on both sides, not just one. The agreements are made ; that is the position, so if they are enforceable one way, they must be enforceable the other. That could protect both employer and employee. Our industrial relations legislation has been intended not only to strike a balance, but to make the employer-employee relationship reasonable and workable, as opposed to one side dominating the other. We have seen too much of that in the past, particularly in the 1960s.
There is room for us to develop trade union law and reform the existing legislation. That would benefit trade unionists and others. Employers would have more concrete arrangements on which to work, especially if agreements became enforceable in law. That would
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remove the uncertainty that is still to be found in many industrial disputes : only when they escalate into direct conflict does it become clear what will happen.If the Government do not introduce such reforms, the Opposition almost certainly would not. Essentially, the Labour party remains dominated by the trade unions. The policies of which we have heard so much--or, perhaps, not enough ; we do not know the details--would rely on the union barons to take us forward into the future. Today, the unions sponsor a higher proportion of the parliamentary Labour party than at any time since 1935 ; that includes the majority of the shadow Cabinet. Since 1981, they have controlled the lion's share of the vote in the election of the party leader. As far as I am aware, the Leader of the Opposition has no plans to alter either arrangement.
In deference to their paymasters, the Opposition have opposed every trade union reform since 1979, including the introduction of pre-strike ballots and ballots for union elections. They have not opposed a single major strike in recent years : they did not oppose the miners' strike, the transport strike or the health service strikes. They seem determined to repeal much of the successful and welcome legislation of the past 12 years. Their policies would almost certainly bring about the return of secondary action and flying pickets, and would grant the unions unprecedented legal immunities and privileges. They would be protected by effective sanctions if they broke the law.
Labour's latest document, "Opportunity Britain", still contains policies that would benefit trade union leaders, and the unions continue to influence Labour's policy in many major areas of the economy, training, health and transport. The threat to the economy, productivity and growth is as real as ever. Labour's trade union reforms would almost certainly prove disastrous.
I believe that we need a further step on the step-by-step approach that the Government have taken over the past 12 years to discourage precipitate action and protect third parties that play no direct part in disputes. A cooling-off period following ballots has proved successful in other countries. I also believe that it is time that people had a statutory right to belong to the unions of their choice. That would remove the effects of the Bridlington procedures and take away some of the functions of the TUC.
We should also consider the status of agreements between trade unions and employers. They should be made legally binding, as they are in some other countries. In years to come we shall want to introduce further reforms. During the past 12 years we have passed both major and minor legislation to improve industrial relations. That legislation has proved to be enormously successful. It has also proved to be very popular both within the trade union movement and outside it. We need, however, to do a little more. I hope that the Minister and his Department of Employment colleagues will include some of the points that I have made in their Green Paper. If we do not continue trade union reform in order to improve industrial relations, the Opposition will never do so.
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5.40 amMr. Patrick Nicholls (Teignbridge) : I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens) for providing the House with the opportunity to debate this subject. He has raised a number of interesting points and ideas for taking trades union reform forward. He has told us about the work still to be done, but he will probably agree with me when I say that we shall essentially be dealing with fine tuning. We shall have to look at the pattern of trades union reform since 1979, adjust it and get it right in the light of developments.
If one looks at the pattern of trades union reform since 1979, it is easy to see what a very long way we have come. I refer to pre-strike ballots, ballots for the election of trades union officers, the developments relating to secondary picketing and the outlawing of the closed shop. All this, and a great deal more, forms the pattern of legislation and trades union reform since 1979. It is not surprising that a pattern of reform such as that should be introduced by a Conservative Government. It very much underpins Conservative philosophy, which is all about making sure that the rights of organisations do not become bigger than their aggregate parts. It is a question of ensuring that major organisations do not lose sight of the fact that if they have been created to serve the interests of their members, that is exactly what they have to do. It is not surprising that a Conservative Government, not a Labour Government, should have been very keen to ensure that there is proper freedom for members to operate within those organisations and to embark on such a course of reform. The interesting aspect of that course of reform is that it should have been so overwhelmingly popular, as is evidenced by the results of three general elections. It will be common though not comfortable ground between us that whatever other reasons people may have had for voting Conservative at the last three elections, the question of trades union reform has featured significantly and resulted in some people, many of whom were trades union members, voting Conservative for the first time. The fact that a Conservative Government embarked on such a course of reform and the fact that it has been popular is not, in a sense, surprising. What is surprising, perhaps, is the fact that the Labour party has now decided that it is in favour of these reforms. It is prepared, superficially at least--I stress the word "superficially"--to say not that it has been in favour of these reforms all along, but that for some particular reason, not yet specified, it intends to look at this matter in an entirely different way from the way that it has looked at it in the past.
An interesting feature of our debate is that two questions can be asked. First, is it likely that the Labour party has truly changed its position-- has the leopard truly changed its spots? Secondly, is it actually true that it has done so? On the question whether that is likely, it is worth considering the history of the Labour party and what that tells us. To be fair, I ought to make the point that, in view of what I am about to say, I imply no criticism of the Labour party. On previous occasions I have stated the argument in a slightly different way. A debate such as this, however, attended only by aficionados concentrates the mind and makes one behave in an even fairer way than one might otherwise behave.
The point that must be made is that it would be quite wrong to accuse the Labour party of being a mainstream
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political party. Nothing in its history or origins gives rise to that supposition. It does not pretend, and I use that word in both senses, to be a popular movement. It cannot pretend to be rooted in the general traditions of this country. It cannot be said to be a popular movement based on ordinary sentiments of common sense and patriotism. Its genealogy is short, obvious and brutish : it was created to be the mouthpiece of the trades union movement. That is what it has been over the years and in a sense, even if we do not particularly like what the mouthpiece says, it is no criticism of the Labour party to say that that is what it is. Much though the Labour party may try to avoid the fact, it is the mouthpiece of the labour movement and of the trades union movement. That is its purpose and why it was created.We are given to understand that, despite the Labour party's origins and history, all has changed in recent times. We are asked to accept that, because of the dynamism and sheer intellectual force of the Leader of the Opposition, the Labour party has entirely changed its spots and can no longer be regarded as merely the mouth on a stick of the trades union movement.
Is that likely? We are told that the Labour party has introduced significant reforms to ensure that it will not be dominated by the union movement. The problem is that the most significant of the reforms is due to be made after the next general election, when Labour party policy will be decided, as always, by its conference. Even after the major reforms that the Leader of the Opposition has introduced, 70 per cent. of the votes cast at the Labour party's conference will be the block vote of the trades union movement. That is after reforms have been made to reduce union domination. It is a funny reduction in domination if, after the event, 70 per cent. of the votes to decide party policy are cast by the trades union movement.
In deciding whether the Labour party has changed its position on trades union reform, or is likely to do so, one must consider the sponsorship of Labour Members. They would be the first to correct me if I were to pretend that 100 per cent. of the parliamentary Labour party is sponsored by trades unions. Some 33 per cent. of Labour Members are not ; only 67 per cent. are sponsored by trades unions. If that worries Labour Members, they need have no fear, because the shadow Cabinet shows solidarity. Every one of its 20 members is sponsored by the trades union movement. In case any members of the general management committee are lurking up in the gallery, listening to our debates or will study them later, Labour's Front-Bench spokesmen will confirm that all the members of the shadow Cabinet, which is represented here tonight by the second division, are sponsored by the trades union movement.
Even if one were prepared to ignore the raw figures, it is worth considering what some of the reformers say about trades union matters. We should consider the two leading lights and moderates of the labour movement. The views of the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith)--he of the lunchtime offensive--were interestingly described in his house. He spoke of a legal requirement for pre-strike ballots. He described the proposition for pre-strike ballots and ballots for union elections--
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