House of Commons Hansard Debates for 18 Feb 1992

Mr. Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) : Does my hon. Friend agree that these were the very contentions that were struck down by the European Court of Human Rights because they were such a fundamental denial of the liberty of individuals to pursue employment?

Mr. Coombs : I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. That is why the Government were right to make a priority of the trade union legislation which they enacted in 1980, 1982, 1984, 1988 and 1990 to loosen those inflexibilities and to give individual members more control of their trade unions and more control over how they went about their legitimate business of making a living for themselves every day of their working lives.

The hon. Member for Newham, North-East said that the one thing employers do not want is more trade union legislation. The one thing that a Labour Government, God forbid, would give them is more trade union legislation. That legislation would not make it easier for them to manage their businesses but would have precisely the opposite effect.

It is no wonder that the Labour party takes that line. When 90 per cent. of the votes at its annual conference are controlled by the trade unions and when 23 members of the shadow Cabinet have trade union sponsorship, it would be staggering if the party acted in any other way. The party is acting in its own interests, as we see from its policy documents. In "Opportunity Britain" it says that it will "restore the right to take sympathy action."

That is secondary picketing. The trade unions will have a legal right to enforce recognition subject to a certain ballot. We know what the TUC regards as an appropriate ballot, because it said so in a consultation document issued only last year. According to the TUC, if only 40 per cent. of people in a workplace vote for trade union recognition--we can forget about the 80 per cent. now associated with closed shop legislation--trade union recognition will have to be accepted.

The working charter put forward by the Labour party would restore trade union immunity, and all contractual rights of employers and employees would be suspended during industrial action. Although the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) brazenly talked about his support for pre-strike ballots and ballots for union elections, it does not square very well with his comments in the debate on the Trade Union Act 1984 in November 1983, when he said that pre-strike ballots were a scandalous and undemocratic measure against the trade union movement. Either he is turning his back on his trade union friends, in which case he will have something to explain to them, or he has something to explain to the public, who would not

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be wise to give credibility to someone who can change his mind so easily and in such a slippery way on a fundamental question. The problem with the trade union reforms likely to be adopted by the Labour party is that the ones that I have mentioned so far, although probably the most far-reaching statutorily, would be but the tip of an unpleasant iceberg in their effect on small businesses and everyday life.

What else has the Labour party in store for people who are trying to run a business and make a living? The first thing is an annual audit of the labour force, with all the bureaucratic administration which that involves. The work force would have to be analysed according to sex, race and disability at least once a year. Firms would have to account to a regional equality tribunal--I thought that we had gone past 1984--which would oversee their personnel policies. The Labour party also has proposals against race and sex discrimination. It wants positive discrimination--the poppycock talked about in "Meet the Challenge : Make the Change" :

"We must also change the passive nature of our sex and race discrimination laws to require positive action to promote equal rights for women, the black, Asian and other ethnic minority British, and incorporate those EC Directives, (including the obligation to provide parental leave) which promote greater equality".

Mr. Mike Watson (Glasgow, Central) : In scorning Labour policy on equality of treatment for employees at work, is the hon. Gentleman saying that it is permissible to discriminate against people on grounds of race or sex? Is he aware of, and does he find acceptable, the lamentable levels of black and Asian workers in skilled jobs and the equally lamentable number of women in senior management posts in industry? If he finds those unacceptable, how would he propose to address the problem?

Mr. Coombs : Of course it is unacceptable to discriminate against people on the grounds of race, sex or the colour of their skin. That goes without saying. What is grossly condescending, and what the Labour party seems to be specialising in increasingly, although there are pockets of resistance among more moderate and sensible Labour councillors, is to say as is its policy that we must take positive action to ensure that one person gets a job ahead of someone else with equal or better qualifications, purely by virtue of the colour of that person's skin or his race. That would be likely to lead to a backlash among people who did not get jobs because of positive discrimination. In addition, it would probably lead to ever more administrative interference. Surprise, surprise-- companies would have to report on their positive discrimination policies to something called the women's regional advisory commission.

We would also have a payroll tax which would centralise and bureaucratise training and increase costs. There would be social audit of what the Labour party regarded as major investment decisions, which would further delay the investment which the country so badly needs. There would be enterprise training councils, apparently to be set up not on an industry basis but on a

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firm-by-firm basis, with all the bureaucracy, additional administration and lack of competitiveness that they would involve. We would also have the social charter and what my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield referred to as the "Where do I sign?" attitude of the Labour party. The social charter would have a devastating effect on medium-sized carpet companies in my constituency, because it would ultimately contain restrictions on working hours of the 48-hour-week kind, which would remove the flexibility they need to compete in world markets.

My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield dealt with the minimum wage proposal. Like him, I think that it would tend to force out 6 million part- time workers, of whom 90 per cent. want to work only part-time, and would increase costs to British industry enormously, so driving us out of world markets.

I support the improvements planned by the Government. Most of all, I urge the Government to continue, as they have been doing over the last 12 years, to create an environment which would allow more local bargaining and agreements. Some 34 per cent. of agreements are still made nationally, and that percentage is too high. I urge the Government to investigate the activities of pay review bodies which, almost by definition, cannot relate to the circumstances of local labour markets and are therefore inflationary. The Government want to do more for women, who make up 1.7 million of the 2 million extra jobs created over the last 10 years.

Most of all, the Government must recognise that good industrial relations are about Government non-intervention rather than Government intervention, and about leaving employers and employees to bargain with each other and co -operate with each other

constructively. This flexibility, which goes with the grain of the new industrial society, is one of the great achievements of the Conservative Government. The Labour party's so-called Pauline conversion in respect of industrial relations policy is paper-thin. It is pretty transparent and unconvincing.

For evidence of that, one has only to look at the testimony of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prestcott), the Labour party's transport spokesman, who, referring to Conservative trade union legislation, said :

"There is nothing you can keep of this legislation It all has to go."

That is the real face of the Labour party. If--God forbid--it should ever get into power, it would have so many bills to pay to its trade union sponsors that anybody who thinks that, in terms of trade union legislation, it would act responsibly is living in cloud cuckoo land. Well, I believe that the British electorate does not live in cloud cuckoo land, and that people will see through the Labour party's blatantly transparent and hypocritical policies.

7.20 pm

Mr. Thomas Graham (Renfrew, West and Inverclyde) : Tonight we are talking about industrial relations. I should like to refer to the industrial relations of some of the companies in my area. In the case of the ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne, the Secretary of State decided that the board should be changed and the possibility of privatisation considered. The first threat to be levelled at the work force was that the company's headquarters at Gourock, in my constituency, should be moved to Oban.

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Was there any attempt to discuss the matter with the local work force? None whatsoever. The managing director of the company was appalled, and I understand that even the board appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland was appalled. The trade unions contacted me as their parliamentary representative and asked me to do all in my power to prevent such a stupid move. I am glad to say that common sense prevailed.

My point is that such behaviour does not encourage good industrial relations. Debate in society is hardly encouraged when the Secretary of State rides roughshod over workers--in this case, the people who made Caledonian MacBrayne a very good ferry operator. The approach that the Secretary of State adopted was utterly wrong.

Some time ago, British Aerospace announced that the royal ordnance factory in Bishopton, which is also in my constituency, would close and that the decision was irreversible. Closure would have resulted in the loss of 800 jobs. I asked the Secretary of State for Scotland and many other Ministers to intervene to try to make the company see common sense. On the grounds that it was a commercial decision, they declined. Ministers would do nothing to prevent the loss of 800 jobs in my constituency. We put up many arguments to the effect that closure would be nonsense, as the company's products were still very necessary.

I am glad to say that the management and British Aerospace listened to the sensible, loyal, well-organised and disciplined work force, which co- operates through the trade union movement. In fact, the workers in that factory--all of them--are the trade union movement. They work hard. Indeed, they showed the company that they were prepared to work all hours of the day at the wages on offer. They pleaded with the company to reverse its decision. They showed that they had more commitment to the country and to the company than do some of the members of the board.

I am delighted at the sensible steps taken by the trade union leadership. At that time, the factory convenor was Jimmy Burns--an admirable exponent of the right to work and of the right to defend this country. Jimmy Burns believed that closure of that factory would have removed part of the country's defence. The workers put up a magnificent case. In the Falklands war and in the Gulf war, they proved their worth, working 24 hours a day for the country, despite this threat. They did not walk away. Good trade union relationships and a sensible work force produced the result which I described. Through industrial relations legislation such as have been described today, the Government want to throw much of that away. I am delighted to have backed these workers in their fight for their jobs. I should like now to refer to Reid's, a famous furniture making company in the Renfrewshire area. That company is certainly one of the finest furniture manufacturers in Great Britain, and there is no doubt that its trade union relations are excellent. The company pays good wages and provides very good conditions. All its workers are paid more than £3.45 an hour. The firm does not argue against paying a minimum wage. It believes that we must get people back to work and that the only way to restore their purchasing power is to give them the opportunity to work. Reid's is the Rolls-Royce of the furniture industry, and it competes with the best.

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I worked in Rolls-Royce for 14 years. It is another company that pays very decent wages. I do not know many of its employees who work for less than £3.45 an hour--perhaps the Minister has access to such information. Because of the recession, Rolls-Royce is paying workers off. I understand that there are to be 2,000 redundancies-- 300 of them in Renfrewshire. Workers are sick to the gullet of the continual job losses resulting from the Government's inability to manage our economy. The trade union movement in the Rolls-Royce factory is very responsible. It has made it clear that there is no desire to deal with oddballs here and there. The management find it easier and better to operate in conjunction with the trade union movement. I have mentioned four companies where the trade union movement has shown more responsibility than have the Government or Ministers. The Opposition amendment asks for support for the European social charter. I have spoken to local Tories about the Government's rejection of this charter. They cannot understand why the Government refuse to support it. As the refusal appalls me, it appalls them. This country's unemployment is rising to record levels ; we have record bankruptcies, rising poverty and record house repossessions ; we have record and rising crime too. Why ? Why ? Why ? I can give the reason : we have a Government who are bankrupt when it comes to caring and blind to the suffering of our people--a Government living in a fool's paradise.

The Minister's cohorts in Scotland promised every school leaver a training place. It was to be an absolute guarantee. There was no possibility that young people would go on to the dole ; they would go straight into training places. What happened to that promise ? As with so many other things, what the Government said has proved to be totally false.

What did the Government do in my area when the local enterprise companies were set up ? I shall tell the Minister. They cut the training budgets of nearly all the local enterprise companies in Scotland by 33 per cent. I do not want to greet and cry over the job losses which the Government have inflicted on our people, but I do cry and worry when they cut the right to give our people hope for the future by not allowing them to be trained.

The whole country, especially Scotland, faces a dire crisis, but the Government have cut the budgets which give our young people hope. By making those cuts, they also ensured that the training agents and companies went to the wall, thus ensuring that trainers and supervisors--the skilled men and women who were training the young people--also went on to the dole. Their skills have been scrapped and they are no longer contributing to gearing the country for the future. That is what happened in Scotland.

Education gives hope to young unemployed people--indeed, it gives hope to many people. Training gives young people dignity and the hope that they will have the right to a job, but the Government have completely taken away the employment rights of young people in Scotland by savagely reducing the money allocation by 33 per cent. I heard the Minister say earlier that one man's wage award was another man's job loss. What does the Minister say about redundancies? Law Tex, a company in my area, was closed or liquidated and 120 jobs were lost. Some women had worked there for 11, 13 or 19 years. They worked wholeheartedly and enjoyed their job. Now,

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through no fault of theirs, the company has gone to the wall. The company says that it went to the wall because of the recession, high interest rates and competition.

That was in August last year. What has happened to the workers since? They have not been given a penny of redundancy money. Letters were sent back and forth between them and the Minister, but all they got was a negative reply, to the effect that the Government were doing this and that with regard to legalities. In those circumstances, when people lose their jobs and are put into poverty, the Government should provide money immediately and then try to get it from the people who should have been paying the workers. The Government should make a positive effort to provide the redundancy money now, not in six months from now. That six-month delay has been a further damaging blow because of the recession caused by the Government. I plead with the Minister to give these people their redundancy money now. Let us consider companies which are into not golden or diamond but platinum handshakes, while the poor workers in Law Tex cannot get their redundancy money through no fault of their own. The Law Tex employees worked to give that company a future. They hear about people making millions of pounds out of failures. Burton's Cooklin was paid about £1 million for running the company. The sum at Granada was £580,000, while Saatchi's Warman received £1.1 million and Isosceles' Smith more than £1 million. They are platinum handshakes for failures. It is unbelievable and it makes me want to greet, but they have cried all the way to the bank while my people starve in poverty and misery.

Let us consider another company in Scotland. The chairmen of the privatised Scottish Power awarded themselves a rise of £47,000. I shall be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about that rise, because there was an article about it in a Glasgow newspaper. The chief executive of Scottish Power was given a rise of £96,000. These are mind-boggling sums. I have never seen £96,000 in my life, except written down. In 1991, the chief executive of Scottish Hydro-Electric gave himself an extra £89,000--a 120 per cent. pay rise. By the way, the Secretary of State for Scotland has done nothing.

These levels of pay awards are obscene when people in Scotland are dying of starvation. I can give the Minister the facts and figures. There are people on the streets of London who are dying from hypothermia, of drug taking and of general deterioration caused by their inability to get a job in Scotland and being forced to come down here, desperate for work. They are dying in the streets and I should like to know how many have died during the cold weather that we have suffered in the past few days. When unemployment is raging and rocketing, it is obscene that some people are awarding themselves wages rises which are unbelievable and belong to a fantasy world --it is like getting that one in a million coupon.

I worked at a factory bench for Rolls-Royce for 14 years. Many times I suffered financial hardship, even though I had a wage. I found it difficult to pay electricity and gas bills and rent. I had the pipe dream that everyone has of buying a coupon and having it come up. I used to think about winning £75,000. What would I do with £75,000? I would instantly buy myself a nice wee house and

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go on holiday to Benidorm, which would be fantastic. I would buy myself a wee car. That was the dream. Is the Minister listening? Some people are already living in the dream world for which other people have worked, and they are ripping off the workers. Companies are going bankrupt and failing, yet people are taking money from them. By doing so, they are putting jobs in jeopardy.

I could go further. The Government have made many blunders, but the biggest was trying to hoodwink the people of Britain by saying that the social charter was not good for them and that everything in it was bad news. They should tell that to one of my constituents who worked for Coulport and Faslane as a security guard earning £1.85 an hour. That would not buy a pint in London, but that man was expected to bring up his family on it. In addition, he had absolutely no rights--when his partner did not turn up for work, perhaps because of illness, he was asked whether he wanted to do a double shift. If the next partner did not turn up for work, he was told to work a treble shift. All that had to be done for £1.85 an hour.

That man had absolutely no rights--it was a matter of "take it or leave it- -get out of the factory now." He had no rights and no wages. None of us here could call £1.85 an hour for a man who had a family and who had served for 20 years in our armed forces a proper wage. It is unbelievable that any Minister could condone working on such poverty wages. That man had no trade union rights ; he had nothing. I met that man and he was a bag of nerves. He eventually had to give up his job because he was mugged in Faslane. The company running the security guards broke every rule in the book. I will provide the information so that the Secretary of State can check up and perhaps stop the company breaking every rule in the book. The one rule that the company did not break was the low pay rule.

I am delighted that there is one trade union that is bucking the trend--the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. It is getting new members, and it is one of the unions in the forefront of fighting against low pay, and of fighting for the minimum wage and for the right of people to be able to eat and to heat themselves in the winter. It is fighting to ensure that the work force have a salary or a wage, and a right to a living. I am delighted to back that union by which I am sponsored. [Hon. Members :-- "Ah."] Ah. For the record, I do not get any money. The money goes to the constituency Labour party. The £700 that the union gives each year is used to ensure that people like us can come here. There are no big bucks coming from the people I spoke about earlier. They get £1 million as a pay-off for almost bankrupting a company.

Dr. John Reid (Motherwell, North) : Given that there is such controversy about the extra-curricular financing of Members of Parliament and given that my hon. Friend has told us that any money he receives, which I imagine is less than £1,000 a year, is passed immediately to his constituency party, can he give me one example of a Conservative Member--my hon. Friend knows that many of them have up to 20 or 30 directorships and earn hundreds or thousands of pounds a year--who passes his money either to his constituency party or to a charitable cause?

Mr. Graham : The Minister may need to set up a training school to instruct Tory Members on how to pass

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back some of that money. I do not know of any examples. We know that the Greeks have given the Tories money. Although the Tory party tries to deny it, we know that it has received foreign money for years.

Trade unions are a valid part of this nation. If we want to work our way back to full employment, we must work together. The institutions of government, the trade unions and the colleges of education must work their way back to full employment. We must manufacture to survive. We cannot always have the policies of confrontation which the Government advocate. We must invest in manufacturing and we must not use "commercial decisions" as an excuse. We must invest far more in training than the Government have attempted to do, and we must invest in our people. We must ensure that they have a decent health service and decent housing, and we must ensure that they have a right to live.

We must prepare our young people for the worldwide challenge against poverty and homelessness. We must equip them with the tools and education. I shall be glad to give way if the Secretary of State wants to intervene. I believe that this country has not invested in its young people. I ask the Secretary of State to come with me to my constituency and to meet the young unemployed. They are decent young men and women who want the right that the Secretary of State has to receive a good salary, and who want to be able to buy the things that his family can buy. The people of my area are not beggars and they do not ask for charity ; they demand their rights. The Government are here to work for the people, not to destroy them.

The other night I met one of the senior citizens of my area. His point to me was clear. He said, "Tommy, I am glad that I have come to the end of my days. My father fought for this country in the first world war, I fought for this country in the second world war and my son fought for this country in other wars. My grandchildren are now unemployed and hospitals have long waiting lists."

Unemployment is a scourge. I am delighted that the battleground of an election is now emerging. It will give the Government a big kick. We shall kick the ball, and the Government will be right off course. The people in Scotland, in England and in Wales will get rid of this Government--there is nothing surer. By doing that, our young people will be able to fight for a future. We will get them educated and trained, and we will take on the world. This country will beat the world, because our people have the capacity. They will get rid of this Government and, thank goodness, this is probably the last time that we shall hear the Secretary of State speak this term. 7.46 pm

Mr. Barry Field (Isle of Wight) : I will not attempt to follow the hon. Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham). I am sorry that the Secretary of State is just departing. He did not hear the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), who heavily criticised him for going back in history in his opening speech. I noticed that the hon. Gentleman mentioned Lloyd George no fewer than three times. He very much delved into the scrap-book of history when he criticised my right hon. and learned Friend. His speech was like one from an 18th-century edition of Reader's Digest.

When I questioned the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, who is the Chief Whip for the Liberal

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Democrats, about why they advocated regional pay bargaining, but would abolish the ability of trust hospitals to negotiate their own pay structures, he refused to answer. I conclude that he is not so much a Chief Whip, more a feather duster. The last time the Liberal party formed a Government, Horatio Nelson was still able to clap. The motion says that the Opposition's policies would

"destroy employment opportunities, threaten public services, and cause inward investors to take their investment and jobs elsewhere." They could.

My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Employment will remember that, under the previous Labour Government, we had to go to the bank to sign a little form on the back of our passports to get £50 with which to go abroad. We were not allowed to take any more. If we committed the heinous crime of booking a holiday in Italy, we had to apply to the Royal Automobile Club or to the Automobile Association for vouchers for petrol. Petrol was so expensive in Italy that £50 was not enough to allow for a motoring holiday there. So the Labour Government had a marvellous arrangement of a voucher system with the motoring organisations.

The Labour party seems to have completely missed the fact that, with the deregulations in 1992, all British people will have the right to reside anywhere in the European Community, and to take their bank balance, their company headquarters and their capital with them. Labour's taxation policies would produce the greatest exodus from Britain that the nation has ever seen, because they would make us an uncompetitive tax regime.

So when Opposition Members tell us about policies of investment in industry, my hon. Friends on the Front Bench should highlight to the British electorate Labour's taxation policies. There would be a great exodus if Labour ever got its hands on the Exchequer purse and raised taxation to the penal levels that it advocates.

However, I have no wish to debate Labour's taxation policies this evening. The motion says that the Opposition's policies would "threaten public services". During the winter of discontent, we saw the greatest breakdown of law and order among trade union membership that Britain has ever seen. A leading part was played by NALGO in that.

I was interested to find that during the 1987 general election NALGO played a part in my election campaign. The union called a public meeting and complained that I was not present at it. That was hardly surprising, because I knew nothing of it. It then wrote to all its members and the councillors of all three councils informing them that I had refused to come to a meeting. By dint of reply to this great debate, I requisitioned a special meeting of the Isle of Wight county council. We held it on a Saturday morning. The chairman of the council complained that I had requisitioned a special meeting of the council to debate the actions of NALGO. That could not have come as much of a surprise because he was also a member of NALGO. However, he said that he had taken no part in the decision of NALGO to write to all councillors and all its members complaining of my action. I wanted to make that point to my hon. Friends because at that time there was an injunction against NALGO on behalf of several Conservative councillors. Subsequently, NALGO's 1987 election campaign was found to have been out of order. Sir Nicolas Browne-Wilkinson ruled that

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NALGO posters in 125 marginals breached electoral law. They should have come under the spending of the agent of the non-Conservative candidates in those marginals.

At that time, NALGO did not have a political fund. In 1988, 51.8 per cent. of the members of NALGO voted to set up a political fund. Tonight I hope to speak for the 48 per cent. who did not. NALGO has just launched a £2 million election campaign. I note that, when the office of the Leader of the Opposition was challenged about the part that the Labour party was playing in NALGO's campaign, it retorted that the campaign had

"as much to do with us as the Institute of Directors".

That point is that the Institute of Directors does not pay £2 million for national advertisements which seek to overthrow a democratically elected Government. The Institute of Directors does not run our polling stations. The Institute of Directors does not make decisions about the investment of taxpayers' money. The Institute of Directors is not employed and paid for with taxpayers' and charge payers' money and business rates, whereas, of course, NALGO is.

Recently we have seen two advertisements in the national papers from NALGO. One talks about the classrooms. The one that I have with me is from The Independent. The bottom line of the advertisement says :

"You can choose a better future. Make sure you do. NALGO." The other advertisement has a picture--

Mr. Clelland : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seem to recall that on one occasion last week when one of my hon. Friends raised a piece of paper in demonstration, he was told by Mr. Speaker that he was out of order. Yet the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) seems to be getting away with it scot free.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : The position is that visual aids have been deprecated by Mr. Speaker, but in this case, if I understand correctly, the hon. Gentleman is quoting from a newspaper cutting. That is in order.

Mr. Field : You are absolutely right, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was quoting from the advertisment which I am holding right here. It shows an elderly lady sitting in front of a fire. In the fire is the citizens charter. She is saying :

"The Citizen's Charter? Oh yes, very useful."

Again at the bottom NALGO says :

"You can choose a better future. Make sure you do."

I also have here a full-page advertisement by the Isle of Wight couty council which appeared in my local press last week. It cost £1, 200. It talked about the Government's capping limit. As I hope to demonstrate in a while, there is a definite connection between NALGO and the way in which local government disports itself and the Liberal Democrats who, of course, have never voted against local government trade unions. The reason why the Liberal Democrats have never voted against local government unions, whether in Liverpool or the Isle of Wight, is that they are not a political party but power brokers. That is their role in life. I believe that they are mesmerised by public service unions. They never face up to the unions.

Liverpool is a case in point. The Labour party came to an agreement with the Liberal Democrats about the budget. At the budget-fixing meeting the Liberal

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Democrats reneged on that agreement because it would have meant redundancies in the public sector unions in Liverpool. They never face up to their responsibilities.

The remarkable advertisement in the Isle of Wight County Press last week, costing £1,200 of Isle of Wight charge payers' money, has a remarkable similarity with the NALGO advertisements in the national press. That shows the definite connection between the Liberal Democrats and NALGO in their anti-Government propaganda.

Later tonight we will debate a motion on the additional grant report for England. I hope that I shall have the opportunity to draw my hon. Friends' attention to the advertisement to which I referred and some literature presented by the Isle of Wight county council. It appears to offend against the Local Government Act 1986 on the prohibition of political publicity. If I have been informed correctly, it might be possible to prosecute Isle of Wight county council for distributing such literature.

We have heard a great deal tonight from hon. Members on both sides of the House about trade unions and their role in modern society. I believe that the Government have given trade unions back to their members. The Government have allowed trade unionists to take part in ballots to choose their leaders. We now have much healthier arrangements for organised labour than Britain has ever had before. However, particularly in the public sector, some trade unions are still organised for political purposes and not for the defence of their members' interests.

I shall give the House an illustration of what I mean. I attended a protest meeting organised by the Liberal Democrats in conjunction with the National Union of Public Employees, the Confederation of Health Service Employees and NALGO outside our new £30 million stainless steel national health service hospital, which was built by a caring Conservative Government on the Isle of Wight. The NALGO representative turned up. I asked him whether he believed in national pay bargaining. He said, "We have always defended national pay bargaining in NALGO." I asked him whether he could tell me, if that was the case, why he had never once criticised the Liberal Democrats for having a regional pay bargaining policy. With that, the deputy leader of the Isle of Wight county council put his arm around him and said, "We are not here to discuss that," and moved him off. There ought to be a health warning with NALGO membership. As has been clearly demonstrated by those quite nasty advertisements in national newspapers, when one joins NALGO one is joining a political party and not an organisation to defend one's interests.

The hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) told us one of the reasons why we have fewer industrial disputes and fewer days lost. Opposition Members said that it was a result of unemployment. I do not believe that. One of the principal reasons why we have fewer industrial disputes is the success of the Government in privatisation and allowing employees of privatised industries to purchase shares, often at an advantageous rate, and to invest in the companies in which they create the wealth.

When I heard Liberal Democrats say tonight that they believe in a partnership between employees and employers, and greater disclosure among the work force, I remembered that they opposed every privatisation issue in

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the House. They opposed workers obtaining a shareholding in the capital of the companies which employ them. It is disgraceful that they should try to make political capital out of the reforms that the Government have introduced.

I am pleased that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State decided to convince the Government that we should hold this debate, because I know that he knows of my concern about the role that NALGO played in my election in 1987. I am pleased that my representations have led to the debate so that we can mention those matters on behalf of the 48 per cent. of NALGO members who did not vote for a political fund and on behalf of many council employees on the Isle of Wight who have been disturbed about NALGO's actions. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will take a personal interest--

Mr. Watson : The hon. Gentleman has been talking at great length about NALGO. It is a great shame that he did not make his remarks earlier when Mr. Max Smith, the Scottish regional secretary of NALGO, was in the Gallery. Perhaps he could have had a discussion with him afterwards about those events. Will he confirm that, although 48 per cent. voted against the political fund, presumably 52 per cent. voted in favour ? Will he give his view of what constitutes a majority--is it the Churchillian version, or has it something to do with the Isle of Wight which the rest of us do not know about ?

Mr. Field : I am interested to hear that the hon. Gentleman wanted me to make my remarks when the Scottish secretary of NALGO was present. I know that the Isle of Wight moves about a bit in a heavy gale and it tends to rock, but it has not yet come under the Scottish Office. Who knows-- there may be a little movement yet. Perhaps that is what the Labour party has in mind for devolution for Scotland--perhaps it includes the Isle of Wight. Who knows ?

Mr. Watson : What constitutes a majority ?

Mr. Field : To answer his question, the hon. Gentleman is not quite correct. I rounded the figures up, in favour of NALGO--51.8 per cent. of NALGO members decided to have a political fund. I wonder how many of them will be voting for a political fund when they see these advertisements-- which I quoted earlier--which say that the British electorate should be looking for a change of Government. Those are advertisements on behalf of a publicly funded trade union. Money is paid to it by the charge payers and taxpayers of the country. That is political propaganda at the taxpayers' and the electors' expense.

Mr. Anthony Coombs : Outrageous.

Mr. Field : It is disgraceful. I cannot tell the House how pleased I am that the Government have acceded to my request to hold this debate, so that I could air my concerns about the part which NALGO played in my election in 1987. I look forward to hearing what plans they have for the forthcoming election.

8.4 pm

Mr. Dennis Turner (Wolverhampton, South-East) : First, it is appropriate that I should declare my membership of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, from which I receive no sponsorship. I am proud to be

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associated with that union, as a member, because of the skills and talents of its work force in the steel industry. We know that that industry has recently been devastated by the further loss of many jobs because of the decision on Ravenscraig.

I am supported in my endeavours in Parliament through the Labour and Co- operative party. I am a co-operator and therefore I receive support, not for myself, but for my constituents, who also believe in the world of co- operation.

A comparison between the Secretary of State's speech at the beginning of the debate and the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair), speaking for the Labour party, showed clearly that the Government have run out of ideas and have to resort to the old and outdated confrontational argument of the 1970s--in the modern idiom, bashing the trade unions. That finds no resonance in this country now.

If we contrast the Secretary of State's speech to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield, we realise that modern, progressive ideas on employment, training and industrial relations emanate from the Labour party. I have some sympathy for the Secretary of State for unemployment, since it is a difficult task to persuade us of the success of his employment and training policies when he reigns over a real unemployment level of 3.25 million, by his own admission. If one takes into account the changes which have been made--there have been so many in the past decade--

Mr. Tony Lloyd : Thirty.

Mr. Turner : The Government have made 30 changes to manipulate the true level of unemployment. Training and enterprise councils are struggling to respond to training demands identified in most parts of the country. They are suffering as a result of insufficient resources.

A further practical difficulty arises for the Secretary of State. A recent survey of his popularity, which I took among employers in my constituency shows--if the results are widespread--that his credibility is in need of a gigantic boost, since he ranks at the bottom as the most unpopular member of a most unpopular Cabinet, who look ever more washed out and tired compared with the freshness, the energy and the ideas emanating from my Labour Front-Bench colleagues. There they are, to be seen and to be heard.

Mr. Roger King (Birmingham, Northfield) : What is the hon. Gentleman reading?

Mr. Turner : I am not reading.

Mr. Barry Field : Talking of dynamism, I understand that 156 of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues are sponsored by trade unions, unlike him . One wonders where the other 150 are tonight, if they are so dynamic and so incensed at the Government's trade union reforms.

Mr. Turner : I imagine that, like Conservative Members, they are busy in Committees or working on behalf of Parliament, as we would expect. However, my hon. Friends to whom the hon. Gentleman referred are all very proud to belong to trade unions.

The Prime Minister appears to have adopted the maxim "make the world go away" or, at least, "let it take the blame". It is worth repeating, because it has been referred to in the debate, that it was the Prime Minister who said,

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