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They scarcely add up to an agenda for a constructive approach to industrial relations. A three-year check-off will not motivate employees or foster a shared commitment to success.

Plans to improve financial accountability of unions to their members, although not objectionable in themselves, do not amount to a strategy for enhancing industrial relations in the 1990s. It would be far better for the Secretary of State to consider proposals that enable every individual to be not a subject at work but a citizen at work, with rights of citizenship in the place of work.

6.13 pm

Mr. David Evans (Welwyn Hatfield) : I have no problem about reminding the House or the nation what it was like in the late 1970s, and I have no compunction about reminding the House what it is like in Liverpool, Lambeth or Newham today. The Opposition want to return to power, and people should know what is coming up the track if they are foolish enough to put them back in power.

For generations, industrial relations were dogged by an "us and them" mentality--workers versus management, shop floor against boardroom. A festering culture of distrust and hostility had developed, in which team work was viewed as collaboration and productivity ran a poor second to the work to rule. Confrontation had replaced co-operation, and militancy had overshadowed compromise. At the heart of that industrial ghetto sat the Labour party and the trade unions, each ensuring that Britain continued along the dismal path of structural economic decline. In return for block votes and campaign funds, the Labour leadership sat on their hands while the Luddites of the trade unions wrecked efficient working practices and obstructed industrial democracy with methods that would have done the KGB proud. That was all carried out in the name of the class struggle.

Who will ever forget the Grunwick picket line--a rabble of louts irresponsibly egged on by members of the Labour Cabinet? Who will ever forget the Wapping dispute, where the police were subjected to unacceptable violence? Everyone will remember the miners' strike, especially the day when a sickened nation was told how striking miners had killed an innocent taxi driver with a slab of concrete. His only crime was to ferry a miner to his place of work. Yet, in all the years since then, I have not heard one Labour Member or prospective Labour Cabinet Minister condemn the strike. I do not suppose that they ever will.

The Labour party, as it did then, tries to portray itself as a modern and progressive party, yet it will not reform the donkey and cart of trade unionism. We have done that. Twelve years of Tory Government have put a stop to restrictive practices, the closed shop and flying pickets. As in all other areas of policy, whether education, local government or the national health service, we have devolved power back to the individual. The trade union movement, despite entrenched and often violent opposition, was to prove no exception. Our measures have ensured that unions exist for their members, not the other way round. Consequently, working men and women have now been given the freedom to decide for themselves whether to take part in industrial action.

It is an impressive record of achievement. In the past 12 years, we have provided financial assistance for union

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ballots ; removed the legal immunity for picketing, secondary action and civil damages ; required unions to elect their principal executive committees by secret ballots at least every five years ; ruled that ballots are to be held before industrial action ; and restricted the scope of unofficial action. None of that restricts the rights and freedoms of the individual. That raft of reforms curbs the influence and activities of the pocket dictators who used to run this country.

It is not surprising that, in "Competing with the World's Best", the CBI welcome the Government's reforms. That is hardly surprising, given that they redress the balance between management and unions. Managers are now free to run companies in the interests of employees and shareholders alike.

In January 1979 alone, during the infamous winter of discontent, 3 million working days were lost. In January 1991, there were only 26 stoppages, the lowest January figure since 1929. In 1979, 29 million days were lost, but in 1991, 3 million days were lost. Those sensational figures are there for all to see.

Reading Labour's coffee-table policy documents gives the impression of watching a horror video in rapid rewind. Images from the past flash before the eyes, until one is, once again, confronted by a scene that we shall never forget--rats running around Leicester square and tourists incredulously seeing the rubbish piled as high as Leicester square cinema. That is what a Labour Government means. The dead could not be buried, while the unions and the Labour leadership said nothing. Dying cancer patients and supplies were refused entry to hospitals because the National Union of Public Employees and the Confederation of Health Service Employees said so.

Where were the Labour Government then? The then Prime Minister was in Barbados having a damn good holiday. When he returned he asked, "Crisis? What crisis?" He soon found out, and found himself sitting on the Opposition Benches.

Mr. Clelland : It may come as news to the hon. Gentleman to know that, only today, I have had to intervene on behalf of 26 cancer patients needing radical and life-saving surgery in my constituency because they could not get admitted to hospital under this Tory Government.

Mr. Evans : I have plenty to say about that. This Government have invested £37 billion in the national health service. They have introduced 65,000 more nurses and 16,000 more doctors into the health service, and 30,000 more patients every week are treated by the national health service than in 1979. That is my answer.

In 1979, the Government of the day did nothing. The nation simply heard the silence of the lambs, and the only head above the parapet was that of Jim Callaghan. All he could mutter was "Crisis ? What crisis ?" Meanwhile, his Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), who was off to Heathrow to borrow more money from the International Monetary Fund to bail out a bankrupt country, was called back by the official receiver--the IMF. He was in his Jaguar and nearly on the plane when he was told to come back. When he got back, he was told "You've had your £50 to take on holiday. You haven't got enough money to go." Hon. Members should realise that, in those days, people could take only £50 a year abroad.

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That shows the state of the country when the Labour party was running it. Who will ever forget it ? It was no wonder that we became the laughing stock of Europe. It was said that, while the French had 100 different cheeses and the Germans had 100 different beers, Britain under Labour had 100 different ways of going on strike. So much for the social contract--it clearly blew up in the face of the Labour Government.

The hon. Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham) talked about inflation. The Labour Government achieved an inflation rate of 9.7 per cent., which they thought was wonderful--it seemed so after the experience of 27 per cent. inflation, but it was never down to 4.1 per cent. The Opposition talk about co-operation with the unions, and suppressing wages, but inflation was still 9 per cent.

Mr. Graham : What good does it do to bring down inflation, when the terrible poverty in this country means that many people cannot buy goods, and cannot eat or heat their homes in winter ? Does the hon. Gentleman think that that is right ? The Government drive to bring down inflation but increase unemployment levels by literally millions.

Mr. Evans : Talk about inflation comes rich from the hon. Gentleman. If one does not have low inflation, the cost of goods means that they will be priced out of world markets, which is what the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

Although we quickly learned the painful lessons of the 1970s, the Labour party clearly has not. Opposition Members would, without a blush, restore the right to take secondary action, weaken the power of the courts to punish law-breaking unions by preventing the total sequestration of trade union incomes and assets, and abolish the procedure under which unions face injunctions if there is any evidence of an intention to break the law. On top of all that, the unions will gain two privileges previously denied them even by past Labour Governments : a legal right to enforce recognition, regardless of membership, and absolute protection from dismissal for strikes. The Labour party would refer industrial disputes to a new industrial court with no effective power to enforce the law and no authority to sequestrate funds. However, experience shows that unions obey the law only when their own funds are at risk. Therefore, the Labour party would effectively draw the teeth of the law, and to hell with the consequences. Once again, the unions would be above the law, and would doubtless act like the poll tax dodgers of the Labour party. In short, Labour's plans would be as effective as allowing a French referee to referee a French rugby match.

On reflection, it should come as no surprise that the Labour party is prepared to roll over and play dead for the unions, as theirs is the most indiscreet of love affairs. Far from being conducted in the back bedrooms of hotels, it is enacted on the stage of conference halls, under the full glare of television lights. At its conference in the summer, the Transport and General Workers Union voted to boycott youth training, employment training, and the training and enterprise councils. It dealt with more

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boycotts than the South African trade mission and, for good measure, voted for the repeal of all trade union reforms.

Who should be present at Blackpool to listen to the tripe and rubbish, and speak to the TGWU but the Leader of the Opposition. When it was his turn to speak, he did not utter a word of criticism, but stressed how proud he was to belong to the TGWU. He said : "It is the Labour party in so many ways."

Who would dispute that? Certainly not the 32 Labour Members who are supported by the TGWU or the 120 Labour Members supported by other unions, who include in their numbers no less than the Leader of the Opposition himself, the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), and the shadow spokesmen for employment and for trade and industry. The TGWU later promised to give £3 million to the Labour party's election coffers-- surprise, surprise. The Labour party is not so silly as to bite the hand that feeds it.

Many years ago, I had the fortunate opportunity to privatise the rubbish and street collecting services of Southend. It was my first confrontation with the TGWU. I found that its members were aggressive and biased towards employees. I was supposed to have inherited 230 workers, but in fact I only ever had 195. The management of the local authority were frightened to go to the yard, and when I went down I had to have police protection.

The rubbish of residents living in houses built after 1970 was not collected during the week, as TGWU shop stewards wanted to arrange for overtime working on a Saturday morning. It was no surprise that the overtime of the eight shop stewards meant that they earned more than one third more than the rest of the work force. In addition, the dustmen would not collect shopkeepers' rubbish. They kept a black book, and any shopkeeper who did not want the rubbish collected when overtime would be paid did not have his rubbish collected. As a result, the shopkeepers either had to give money to the TGWU shop stewards to bolster their private income, or their rubbish was not collected.

I also had a confrontation with Mr. Ted Knight, who then ran Lambeth council. In an argument, it was revealed that rubbish was being collected from houses that had been flattened in the war. Rows of houses had been flattened in the war, and dustmen were getting paid for doing nothing, as the houses no longer existed. That is the sort of thing that happens when the unions go mad. The worst part of it was that the TGWU and the Labour party condoned such action and thought that red Ted Knight was a good sort.

Opposition Members face a conundrum. The corporate social charter experiment of the 1970s was seen to be a dismal failure, but the unions want a return on their investment--I do not blame them. They expect the keys to the back door of No. 10, and a direct input into economic decision- making. How does the Labour party get round that? It is easy : it sets out plans for a national economic assessment to involve unions and employers in annual talks to help pay bargaining, and regular talks on the economy that will inform collective bargaining. In ordinary language, that means beer and sandwiches--or croissants--at No.10. We could place a bet that the views of industry will be drowned by the rustling of dirty, used banknotes.

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It is inevitable that business costs would be dramatically increased, so putting jobs at risk. A foretaste of the sort of schemes that would come out of the official think tank is the national minimum wage, about which we have all heard.

Mr. Forth : At a cost of 100,000 to 2 million jobs.

Mr. Evans : A cost of 100,000 jobs--my hon. Friend must be joking : it would be more like 2 million.

Opposition Members do not know what it would cost. They just plunge headlong towards Europe and a national minimum wage, mindless of the fact that women and the thousands of young people who like part-time work will not be helped by the proposals, but will be dumped on the unemployment market.

Even some Opposition Members are trying to wriggle out of that commitment. The minimum wage is another product of the common room economics that the Labour party would impose on industrialists and businessmen competing in world markets. The shadow trade and industry Front-Bench team have never done a day's work in industry between them. The team is made up of social workers and television people who do not have a clue about business, yet they expect the country to let them run our businesses. Can we believe it? Nobody can believe it. The Labour party's "Where do I sign?" attitude to the social charter is further evidence of its inability to grasp the realities of the marketplace. The Commission's dogmatic proposals for working time, workers' councils and maternity leave should be the product of negotiations between employer and employee, not of centralised imposition. Socialists cannot grasp the fact that, in a modern economy, new working practices require a flexible industrial relations environment that is not dominated by the dinosaurs of the trade union movement.

To this end, I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's further proposals for reform--that unions in the public sector should give seven days' notice before taking strike action, and that consumers of public services should be able to seek injunctions against unions if they are threatened with unlawful industrial action. I also applaud his decision to require strike ballots to be conducted by post and to be subject to independent scrutiny. It is also right that legislation should be introduced to give employees the right to join the union of their choice, and that no worker should have union subscriptions deducted from his pay without consent.

The Government have shown that they want to build on the formidable achievements of the past 12 years ; Labour wants to return to the barricades of the 1970s by implementing policies that reek of the collectivism of that decade. Our reforms have shown that the individual is paramount ; socialists persist in viewing the worker as just another face in the crowd of card-carrying brothers. Industrial relations should be about people, not cattle, which is why the Labour party would once again fail the people and drag the nation back into the gutter where it was before we took over in 1979.

6.31 pm

Mr. Ron Leighton (Newham North-East) : The motives for this parliamentary pantomime and for the speech of the Secretary of State are transparent. The Government tabled a motion on industrial relations, but they are not interested in industrial relations. Rather, this debate is a

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measure of the desperation of the Conservative party, which knows that quite soon, possibly on 9 April, it will be punished by the British people and by the millions who have suffered the ravages of this recession. All who have lost their jobs, all who have had their houses repossessed, all who have had their businesses fold under them will have their say quite soon.

The Government are desperate because they face electoral defeat and they want to divert attention from the recession. The Secretary of State mentioned an increase in manufacturing output. In the past 13 years, manufacturing output has increased by 4.9 per cent. That compares with the figures for Germany at 26.6 per cent., the United States of America at 33.3 per cent. and Japan at 60 per cent. Manufacturing investment has fallen in Britain over the past 13 years by more than 6 per cent., as against increases in Germany of 47 per cent., in France of more than 51 per cent. and in Italy of more than 72 per cent.

We are bottom of all the league tables. The Conservative Government inherited the bonanza of North sea oil ; it has all been squandered, mainly to pay for unemployment, which has increased by 1 million since this Prime Minister took office. He it was who said, "If it isn't hurting, it isn't working," and it was the present Chancellor of the Exchequer who said that mass unemployment was a price well worth paying.

We have had record business failures. Last year there were 80,000 house repossessions, and this country is experiencing homelessness on an undreamed of scale. The Government's reaction has been pathetic and demeaning. They have put on this debate to bash the unions and to try to divert attention from the real issues and garner a few votes by raising a few bogeys from the trade union world instead of looking to the future.

The Conservative party has nothing to offer this country for the future. The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) spoke of his exploits many years ago in Southend. The Conservatives want to go back to the past, back to the old agenda. They talk about the confrontations of the past instead of looking to the future. It is a rather squalid manoeuvre, based on malice and on hatred of the trade unions. Hatred of the unions is written all over the faces of Conservative Members. People with that attitude are unfit to hold office in the Department of Employment.

Conservatives should be reminded that trade unions consist of British people and British voters--more than 8 million of them. They are not the enemy within ; they are our people. Yet the Government's policy is to make war on our people. That is an antediluvian approach ; it is self-defeating, and it is a recipe for strife and confrontation.

In no other advanced country do we find this attitude. The successful countries all regard the unions as valuable partners with which to co- operate and work--that is one of the reasons why they are successful.

We must establish a proper balance between working people and their employers. That balance cannot be sustained without trade unions, which is why they are an essential part of our industrial relations scene. When I worked in industry and was in the trade union movement, I found that it was the very best people who gave their time to the unions to help their fellow men. After six anti-trade union legislative measures, the Government cannot blame the unions for this economic crisis--they cannot claim that strikes are to blame. It is entirely their own fault.

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One of the main proposals in the Green Paper is that there should be new rules for deducting union dues from members' pay--what is known as the check-off, which is mentioned in the Government motion. When I was in industry, I paid my contributions every week. Because I admire the work of my union, I now pay by bankers order. But the check- off is the modern way of collection--a widespread and uncontroversial practise. I know of no demand from anyone--not even from the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield--for a change, yet the Government propose to meddle in this system. That is entirely uncalled for. There is certainly no demand for it from employers. The Government's motives are mischievous and malicious.

The Government hope that their proposal will cause problems for the unions- -that it will damage and weaken them. They propose that authority to deduct contributions must be renewed each year or when the amount is altered. They hope that the unions will have difficulty collecting all the signatures on paper. The Government gleefully think of all the extra work, and hope that the unions will lose some of their members.

As with the rest of the Green Paper proposals, this one is one-sided. If the check-off system needs annual renewal, why, in equity, should not all direct debit arrangements need it? Why should not a person belonging to the National Trust have to renew annually? We have give-as-you-earn schemes and save-as-you-earn contracts. We have payments into benevolent funds. Some people pay their poll tax in this way ; some pay their gas bills in this way. Why should not the same system apply to all?

The Government are clearly not interested in the principle. The proposal is merely a stick with which to beat the unions. Check-off takes place only if both sides agree to it, so what is wrong with it?

The next idea is a seven-day cooling-off period that has to follow a strike ballot. There must have been plenty of notice even before the strike ballot, but the Government propose another seven days. That might have some merit and could be examined. Perhaps the Government are thinking of that idea, because so far the overwhelming majority of strike ballots have been in favour of a strike. The Government legislated for ballots because they thought that strikes were caused by union officials. They did not understand that union officials spend most of their time trying to stop strikes. In my union we have always had ballots and we would have them anyway. Ballots have turned out to be powerful weapons in the hands of the trade unions. We have just seen that in Germany, where there was an overwhelming vote for a strike and the employers thought it wise to make a much better offer. The Government now say that, after a ballot, there must be a seven-day cooling-off period. That should apply to both sides and should not be one-sided. Most precipitate industrial action is caused by hostile action by employers. There should be a seven-day period before either side can take action.

I now deal with the Bridlington arrangements. The British trade union movement grew up in an untidy way. We can contrast that with the situation in post-war Germany where there is one union for each industry. We have multiple trade unions. That could lead to disruptive

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inter-union rivalries and splinter unions and would have a destabilising effect, but the Bridlington rules bring some sort of order.

Everybody, including employers, agreed that the Trades Union Congress had a responsibility to ensure that anarchy was avoided by means of a set of sensible ground rules. I am not aware of any sensible practitioner in the field who takes a contrary view. I have no doubt that the rules are not necessarily perfect and that from time to time they should be reviewed, but the Secretary of State, uninvited by anybody, is now proposing to interefere in his hobnailed boots. He proposes to scrap the lot, to make the ground rules unlawful, and proposes nothing to replace them. There will be a vacuum, a free-for-all. That is highly irresponsible, and I am certain that it will receive little support.

The Government are schizophrenic : in one breath they say that they favour single-union agreements, while in the next they want to give free rein to splinter unions and inter-union rivalries. It should be noted that no one has to be a member of a particular union or any union, and that no union has to be a member of the TUC and subscribe to its Bridlington arrangements. The idea that anybody suffers a loss because he cannot join a union which refuses to recruit him is absurd. It is ludicrous.

The Government rhetoric is that an employee should have the right to join a union of his or her choice. Again, that is one-sided. I would believe the Government if they said that an employee had the right to be represented by the union of his choice. The Government say nothing about unions having the right to be recognised or about the employee's right to be represented. The motion contains nothing about citizens' rights at the workplace. Perhaps that is not surprising, because the British employee has lower pay and fewer holidays, works longer hours, has less job security and enjoys fewer trade union freedoms than employees in any comparable European country.

Mr. Clelland : My hon. Friend gives some interesting statistics. Would he care to speculate on why British employees are so much worse off, given that the trade unions had the terrific power that the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) described?

Mr. Leighton : That is a complete myth. It is a sort of bogey which Conservatives in their present difficulties are trying to raise up to frighten everybody, and, of course, it is complete and utter nonsense.

The Government have advanced another idea--an amazing new proposal on training. We all know that training is one of the Government's biggest failings. The country can compete only if it has an educated and trained work force, but there is a huge skills gap between Britain and its competitor nations, and it is getting bigger. What is the brilliant new idea that is being seriously advanced about training? It is that there should be new contracts, so that the worker who leaves his company prematurely--perhaps the Under-Secretary of State in his winding-up speech will tell us what "prematurely" means--has to pay a penalty. That is the new idea to get training going.

That was precisely the argument of the people who erected the Berlin wall. They said, "We are spending money on training people in East Germany, but when we have trained them they go to West Germany. We cannot tolerate that. We must put up a wall." Does the

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Under-Secretary think that all British companies should build a Berlin wall around themselves and that a penalty should be paid by people who have the temerity to leave?

The proposal tries to address the real problem of poaching, which causes problems in British industry. The good employers train and the bad employers poach. Therefore, we must look after the good employer. How do we do that? Do we build a Berlin wall around companies? The Government are taking the wrong approach. We do not want to build walls or abolish civil rights and freedoms, and surely no one wants to abolish the free movement of labour--or is that what is being suggested? The right answer is to ensure that all employers contribute to training and that none is allowed to dodge the column. That is the argument for what is called the levy. This is an old chestnut.

We all know what has to be done. It is said that a levy would lead to big bureaucratic training boards, which we do not want. But there is a way to do it without bureaucracy ; it is done in France, where every company has to contribute a percentage of turnover to training. Companies that do not subscribe in that way have to pay a levy. Companies that train pay nothing, but the bad employer who seeks to poach has to pay. That is the way to do it. I shall be interested to hear the Under-Secretary's response to that, because the Government are wrong in their approach to training.

The Under-Secretary cannot deny that the Government are having the most awful row with the TECs, the training and enterprise councils. They are cutting the money to the TECs, which are demoralised, and many people in the private sector are saying that they will not participate any more. Some of the TECs will not sign a contract with the Government because the contracts are not good enough. The so-called training guarantees to young people are the means by which the Government say they are committed to youth training, and that every young person leaving school at 16 will get a job or a training place. That is untrue. In borough after borough and area after area across the country, there are hundreds of young people with no job, no training place and no benefit.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland) told us that he had lunch with an employer's organisation today, and I have met many groups of employers recently. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I are all putting on weight because we are dining so often with employers. Employers have the idea that the Government will lose the next election and that there will be a new Labour Government. Who is to say that the employers are wrong?

Therefore, they want to meet the Labour party and to learn from its representatives of the party's policies. They want to know how they will fare under the Labour party. Surely that is wise.

Having met many employers, I have had the opportunity to discuss with them their many worries and concerns. No group, however, has talked of the need for more trade union legislation. I do not know whether a Conservative Member can refer to an employers' association that is saying that it wants more trade union legislation. As I said, employers have problems and worries. They have told me that they are worried about the recession. They are worried also about lack of demand. Some of them who are exporters are worried about the high value

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of the pound. All of them are worried about high interest rates. The CBI and the Engineering Employers Federation--I understand that some Conservative Members are dining with members of the federation this evening--want investment tax incentives. The federation tells me that it wants the Government to put more money into training. It reports that firms are struggling to survive and that with the low unit costs of youth training they cannot afford to take on trainees. As I said, not one group of employers has said that it wants more trade union legislation.

It is not only employers who take that view. I shall try to be helpful to the Government by saying that the public do not want more trade union legislation. If the occupants of the Treasury Bench think that when electors go into polling booths they will be swayed in choosing where to put their cross by a commitment to anti-trade union legislation, they are barking up the wrong tree. In other words, they are wasting their time.

Opinion polls show that fewer than one in five people, including Conservative voters, want more trade union legislation. The public are not asking for it, because they do not want it.

It is interesting also that 93 per cent. of the public want the law to entitle people to be represented by trade unions when they have a problem. We know that more and more people are involved in problems in industry, and that is why trade unions have become popular. Employees are facing redundancy. There are those whose contracts are being torn up unilaterally and who are having foisted on them new contracts that offer worse pay and conditions.

Mr. Forth : If, as the hon. Gentleman alleges, trade unions are so popular, why is their membership falling ?

Mr. Leighton : I should have thought that a Minister in the Department of Employment would know about these matters. He has asked me the question, however, and as I happen to know the answer, I will tell him.

There are two reasons for declining membership, one of which is that the industries that employed trade unionists have disappeared. The coal-mining industry is one example. At the end of the war, it had about 1 million employees--1 million trade unionists. It now employs about 100,000. The motor car industry is another example. Industry after industry is collapsing. That is obviously the main reason for the declining memberships of trade unions.

Mr. Quentin Davies : Does the hon. Gentleman draw any conclusion from the fact that the most highly unionised industries have disappeared or declined, while the less unionised have thrived and expanded?

Mr. Leighton : That used to be the position. When the hon. Gentleman and his party caused the previous recession, unemployment was mainly in the heavy industries, which in many instances were in the north of England. Almost all of them were in constituencies that were represented by Labour Members, so it did not matter to the Government. They were Labour seats in any event.

The hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies) should know--I understand that he is a big wheel in the City and is familiar with the financial world, including the banking sector--

Mr. Flannery : The hon. Member is a farmer in Lincolnshire.

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Mr. Leighton : I have heard about the hon. Gentleman's sheep farm, but I do not want to go into his farming activities. He farms in his spare time. He is a gentleman farmer. He does not look after his sheep himself. I do not complain about the way in which his sheep are cared for because, as I said, he farms in his spare time. He has an allotment, as it were, of about 4,000 acres. His large country estate--his vast acres--is financed by his work in the City and in public relations, for example. He knows that many of those wearing red braces and driving Porsches in the city who bought up all the property in docklands are not doing so well nowadays. I see that he is nodding his head. That is where unemployment is to be found now. Conservative constituencies are being affected.

As I said, 93 per cent. of the people believe that employees are entitled to be represented by trade unions when problems arise in their industry. The squeeze is now being felt by white collar workers, many of whom are not members of a union. This week I dealt with the case of 19 employees who had had their contracts changed unilaterally. If anyone wants me to give chapter and verse, I shall. The 19 were not members of a union, so they decided to come to me. I wrote to their managing director and persuaded him to change his mind. Is that not good? They were not trade unionists but they asked me which union they could join and from where I could get help for them. I repeat : 93 per cent. of the people would like to be represented by a trade union if they were facing problems. I warn the Under -Secretary of State that I am about to say something that will upset him. It might give him palpitations. I ask him to steel his nerves. If he wants to be really popular--

Mr. Forth : Me?

Mr. Leighton : --and wants his party to win the next election, he and it must stop barking up the wrong tree. The policy that is truly popular and commands the support of 85 per cent. of the population is the national minimum wage.

If the Government changed their policy and stole the Opposition's clothes-- if, in other words, they said that they were in favour of a national minimum wage--they would probably sweep the country. The Secretary of State's campaign against a national minimum wage has been an appalling flop. The idea behind the debate of bashing the trade unions and grubbing around for a few votes will similarly fail.

6.58 pm

Mr. Anthony Coombs (Wyre Forest) : If 93 per cent. of the population want trade union representation when there is a problem, and if we bear it in mind that during the 1980s the number of people with jobs increased by 2 million, it is rather curious that, during that decade, the number of people who were members of trade unions declined from 13 million to 10 million. That does not say much for the perception that the public have of trade unions and for the marketing that trade unions are engaging in to attract a potential membership that is growing all the time.

There is no point in the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) saying that only in traditional industries is there trade union membership, and to end the argument there. If trade unions are seen as the power houses of industrial relations, as the hon. Gentleman

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would like to portray them, and if the work force overall is expanding, surely even those industries not traditionally associated with trade unions would see an increased membership rather than a declining membership.

Mr. Clelland : The hon. Gentleman may not have been in the Chamber earlier, when I explained that the increase in employment to which he has referred was overwhelmingly in the part-time, low-paid and low-skilled sectors, and overwhelmingly in occupations in which--regardless of the Government's legislation--people are still being intimidated into not belonging to trade unions.

Mr. Coombs : When we examine the facts, that is revealed to be arrant nonsense. Of the 2 million extra jobs created between 1982 and 1990, just over 50 per cent. were full-time jobs. Over the same period, the real take-home pay of a man on average earnings, with two children, increased by around £41 a week. Ipso facto, it seems likely that the section of the population on which the unions should have concentrated their recruitment drive was increasingly

affluent--although the workers concerned were not those with whom the unions had been traditionally associated.

I was struck by the observation of my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans), towards the end of his excellent speech, that Labour Members who talked of trade union reforms that would tend to return us to the black hole of Calcutta represented by the industrial relations of the 1970s did not recognise the way in which the new industrial society was evolving. The firms that succeed are flexible : they operate in small units and carry out their collective bargaining on a local rather than a national basis. In such firms, there is plenty of flexibility in the performance of tasks and relatively little demarcation. Those are the companies that succeed in today's market--which is not a mass-production market, but a market that relates to ever-increasing changes in taste.

The dramatic decrease in the number of days lost through strike action represents a great achievement of the industrial relations legislation that the Government have produced over the past few years. We have heard about the reduction from 29 million to 1 million in the number of days lost through industrial action ; last year, only 759,000 days were lost for that reason. My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield mentioned the accompanying fall in the number of stoppages : the number has dropped from 2,500 a year--the 1970s average--to only 650 in 1990, and only 354 last year. Of course that is an achievement--and of course, given the changes in industrial society that I have mentioned, it constitutes an advance that only 34 per cent. of workers now decide their wages on a national collective basis, as opposed to 47 per cent. in 1983.

However, although all those developments represent dividends from the important industrial relations changes introduced by the Government, the most valuable advance is the recognition that the most successful firms are the most flexible : firms that give the work force an individual sense of purpose, and treat them as individuals rather than as part of a mammoth mass collective. That, too, was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield. Those are the companies which have achieved the largest increase in productivity. A company in my constituency manufactures parts for the motor industry.

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After it had been involved with the industry for some time, Toyota came along and said, "We should like to purchase from you, but as part of the process we will give you some lessons on man management and industrial relations. This is how we increase our productivity, with exactly the same capital equipment as you."

In a single year, that company achieved a productivity improvement of no less than 70 per cent., with exactly the same work force. The carpet industry is another example of the improvements that have been made : there is no doubt that, over the past 10 years, the work force have been much more flexible and the old demarcation lines have gone. [Hon. Members :-- "Rubbish."] It is not rubbish. We have seen, for instance, the introduction of CADCAM--computer-aided design and manufacture. All that has happened because the trade unions have got rid of the old-fashioned, confrontational "us and them" attitude and have begun to realise that successful companies proceed from the premise that they are sitting on the same side of the fence as their work force--that the only enemy is competition, both at home and abroad.

It is therefore not surprising--although the fact is easily glossed over by the pseudo-industrialists on the Opposition Benches--that, between 1984 and 1990, in-house training increased by 90 per cent. According to the CBI, companies are now spending some £20 million a year on their own training. Those changes in industrial culture, and in industrial relations structure, are the reason why this country has gained 40 per cent. of the European total of Japanese investment, nearly 50 per cent. of United States investment in Europe and 40 per cent. of investment by other OECD countries. As I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens) mentioned earlier, in 1990 alone 62,000 jobs were created by no fewer than 350 individual decisions on foreign investment.

Let us contrast all that with the appalling circumstances of 1979. So far, no hon. Member has mentioned the fact that--sadly--we were known throughout Europe, and especially in the industrial world, for what was described as "the British disease". We were known for that, possibly, more than we were known for anything else. Why? Because the British worker was--probably wrongly--thought by our foreign competitors to be prepared to down tools at the slightest provocation. Red Robbo at Longbridge certainly gave them ample evidence for that supposition.

That is why, in the 1970s, we were losing 13 million days a year through strikes--last year, only about 750,000 were lost. That is why we then had to rely on income policies. The collective bargaining system did not operate effectively and we had to keep the lid on inflation by means of national, centralised control. That is why we experienced demarcation disputes, rigidity and an appalling productivity record.

The villain of the piece--if there was one--was the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1974. Section 14 gave trade unions in the course of trade disputes immunity from tort and conferred on them unique privileges that were not shared by anyone else in the country when they broke contract. Section 13 made trade disputes non-actionable in tort, even where a union interfered with the contract of employment of someone who was not party to a dispute. In other words, in furtherance of a dispute, a union could interfere with the way in which someone else was doing his job and get away with it scot free. Section 29(c) of the Act defines trade disputes as

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"allocation of work or the duties of employment"

of one or more workers. Given that sort of detail, it is small wonder that the demarcation rigidity that was endemic in the 1970s came about.

That was the underpinning of the fossilised state of industrial relations and productivity that we experienced in the 1970s. Again, it is small wonder that, as recent studies have shown between 1974 and 1976, there were no fewer than 5 million jobs from which non-union members were excluded. That does not include all the other jobs where there were not closed shops but nearly effectively closed shops.

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