House of Commons Hansard Debates for 17 Nov 1992

Mr. Evennett : We have provided increased choice in housing, education and many other areas. The Government are continuing to widen choice in all areas, including trades union membership. Under the Bill, individuals must not be excluded or expelled from a union without good reason.

I have confined my speech to trade unions. We have heard much about wages councils and most of what needs to be said has been said by Conservative Members, but the improvements for trade unions under part I are advantageous to ordinary union members, particularly the improvements to the conduct of union elections. I note and approve of the Bill's endeavours to improve the election system for trade unions. This must improve fairness for candidates and ensure that they are all treated equally. The Bill also addresses the secrecy of union affairs, such as membership and remuneration --

Mr. Jimmy Boyce (Rotherham) : What about Tory party funds?

Mr. Evennett : The hon. Gentleman has a large mouth and nonsense keeps coming out of it. If he listened for once he might learn something-- [Interruption.]

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Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I have already spoken about sedentary interruptions. If hon. Members want to say something, they should seek to intervene in the proper parliamentary manner.

Mr. Boyce : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Evennett : No, I have no time.

In 1992, union members should be furnished with important details about their union. Certification officers' powers should be strengthened to investigate apparent impropriety in union affairs. Those are democratic safeguards for individual union members. More information and power for individuals will make for better trades unions. More choice and increased rights for citizens are the order of the day in 1992.

The Government's commitment to the citizens charter has been well received by the general public. For far too long, individual members of the public have been powerless against the might of large unions. I welcome the fact that under the Bill ordinary members of the public will be able to seek legal redress if they suffer as a result of unlawful industrial action. We have all suffered when strikes have been held at short notice. Indeed, sometimes no notice has been given and such action has disrupted business and has disrupted and annoyed my constituents. When that has occurred, especially in the transport sector, people have experienced terrible difficulty in getting home after a long day's work. I know that Opposition Members do not care about ordinary citizens, but Conservative Members believe that they are very important and that they should be our prime consideration. The Bill proposes seven days' notice of strike action, which will be of considerable benefit to the general public. I warmly welcome those provisions. Some of my constituents would like my hon. Friend the Minister to go further and would support no-strike agreements for public services, so perhaps he will consider that as part of the rolling programme which we warmly support.

Judging from the sedentary interruptions of Opposition Members, one would not have thought that this was a modest Bill, but it travels along a moderate road leading to improved and more responsible trade unions and more power to members of trade unions. It is a valuable addition, I believe, to the legal reforms of the past 13 years. It will strengthen the rights of the individual, the employment rights of people at work and the democratic rights of trade union members. 8.58 pm

Mrs. Audrey Wise (Preston) : There are just 55 wages inspectors, whose job it is to enforce the wages council legislation. Yet, even with this tiny number, their diligent work uncovered 5,971 establishments last year paying below the legal minimum rate. There were only, however, 15 prosecutions ; that is, one quarter of 1 per cent. of the known, discovered offences were prosecuted. That hardly suggests wild enthusiasm for law enforcement, but of course this was a matter of whether money would be put back into the pockets of low-paid workers from whom it had been stolen by employers who were acting illegally.

Not satisfied with that, the Government are now embarked on a drive to cut the wages of the lowest paid. They must think that wages will fall ; indeed, they say that jobs will be increased because wages will fall. They think

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that employers are so eager to take on extra staff that anything that they can save by cutting wages they will gladly spend on increasing their staff.

Employers employ as few people as they can possibly get away with. This can be seen by looking at the number of unstaffed check-outs, while customers have to queue. I declare an interest as a sponsored member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. I know about check-outs, and of course unstaffed check-outs mean queues by customers. Customers have to wait just so the staff will not have one minute to look around. So as few workers as possible are employed, the hours of part-time workers are cut against their wishes and their hours are frequently lowered to remove rights to legal protection. Wherever possible, employers employ casual workers, temporary workers or home workers at the lowest possible rates. It is highly improbable that cutting wages will increase employment in that sort of situation. However, it will have the effect of worsening the conditions of the low paid.

We have been told that no damage has been done to the wages of the young since the wages councils were stripped of their powers in relation to young people. However, my union had a look at the job centres in the Manchester area a fortnight ago. It found an advertisement--one of many deplorable advertisements--for a junior trainee hair-dresser to work from Monday to Wednesday 9 to 6, Thursday 9 to 8, Friday 9 to 7 and Saturday 8.30 to 4.30 ; age 16 to 17 only, at a rate of £35 a week. Assuming that she would get a one-hour meal break a day, which cannot be assumed in hairdressing, I make that 50 hours a week at £35 pay. That was in Bolton. In Bury there was an advertisement for a stock assistant : 40 hours ; £1.66 an hour at 16, £1.86 an hour at 17.

As the Equal Opportunities Commission has said, the rates for young people have decreased as a proportion of adult rates, and it believes that there is the strongest possibility that the pay of women currently covered by wages councils will fall proportionately to men's rates. But the Government say that it does not matter. They say, in a letter to my general secretary- -one of many similar letters sent by Employment Ministers :

"Most Wages Council workers are part-timers contributing only a part of the income coming into the family home. There is no close link between the wage rates of such workers and their income." There are a number of aspects to that. One is that the income coming into a household is not necessarily available to the woman of that household. It is not her income, and her husband or partner may not consider it to be their income ; he may consider that it is his income. So the idea that women as workers can simply be subsumed into the household is absolutely anachronistic. Conservatives always accuse us of being old-fashioned. There is nothing more old- fashioned than that ; nothing more insulting and damaging to many families. The EOC refers to the fact that, in 1978, it was discovered through research that three times as many families would be in poverty if it were not for the earnings of the mother in the household. The EOC points out that women's earnings contribute more to the family now than they did in 1978. We are talking about family poverty. The Government say that overwhelmingly people in poverty do not have a job. They are experts in increasing the number of such people. They are now going down the road of increasing the number of people who are in

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poverty despite having a job. They are adding to the poverty of unemployment the poverty of the working poor. [Interruption.] I notice a great sense of humour among Ministers. They laughed heartily when my hon. Friends talked about the problems facing families at Christmas. People can draw their own conclusions from such expressions of humour.

People will be in poverty ; they are in poverty now. Earnings of women are essential ; they are not frivolous. Their earnings are not second incomes in the sense of not mattering to the family. The earnings matter to the individual woman and they matter to her family. There is every evidence that women's earnings will be cut as a result of the Bill.

If wages will not fall as a result of the Bill, why do the Government say that there will be extra jobs ? How will that come about ? If the Bill will have no effect on wages, where will employers get the extra funds that they are deemed to be willing to spend on more employment ?

What will really happen is that demand will be withdrawn from the economy, which is a fancy way of saying that people will have less money to spend in the shops. That will mean not only that shopworkers' wages will be cut because they are the biggest group of workers covered by wages councils, but that their job opportunities will lessen because the recession in retailing is likely to be worsened.

Anybody who continues to think that the Conservative party is good at managing the economy must be blind to facts. The one certain fact is that the Conservative party is greatly damaging the economy of private citizens, especially low earners. I am pleased to have had the opportunity of saying that and to draw attention to the fact that if one removes a floor, rates above are likely to fall as well. There is no truth in the Government's press statement in which they say :

"Where companies pay above the pay levels laid down by wages councils, they are irrelevant."

Wages councils provide the floor. If the floor goes, people earning above wages council rates will also be affected. The Bill is a drive against the wages of the poor, but it is also a drive against wages generally. I hope that it will be defeated.

9.7 pm

Mr. Oliver Heald (Hertfordshire, North) : If what the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) said about the unions is right, if they have a powerful role in acting for their members in negotiations, if they are able to influence contracts of employment without reference back to their members personally, if they are able to have subscriptions deducted from wages without reference to their members every year, and if they are important in our society, why should they not give basic rights to their members ?

One such right is the right to a full postal ballot before industrial action. Why should they not give that right so that employees have the opportunity to consider the merits of industrial action in their own homes, away from the pressures of the workplace ?

Why should not trade unions give an annual statement of their finances, saying what is happening to the money that the members have paid? Why should not the trade

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unions consult on subscription increases when they come up? Why should they not have to justify themselves to their members every three years if they are to continue to have the right to check off? Finally, if the institutions are so important, why should not the individual member have the right to choose which one he or she wants to join?

Over the years, we have heard trade union representatives and Labour Members repeatedly object to legislation, only to find a few years later that it has become official Labour party policy. It is too bad that, instead of a genuine debate, we hear nothing but the Labour party's parrot calls.

Winston Churchill introduced the legislation which laid the foundations for wages councils in circumstances very different from those obtaining today. He wanted to protect the disabled, the widows and the infirm. He was concerned that

"the worker whose whole livelihood depends upon the industry" concerned should not be "undersold". I repeat that circumstances have changed since then. In those days, the social security system, which provides a safety net for low-paid workers, did not exist--and the trade unions were perhaps not so effective as they later became. Above all, we should remember that 80 per cent. of workers now covered by the wages councils do not rely on that money for their entire livelihood.

There was a time when trade unions would admit that circumstances had changed. In the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, the Transport and General Workers Union was opposed to wages councils. In its response to the Donovan commission, the TGWU said :

"Wages Councils do not represent an effective means of raising the standards of lower paid workers and they should be abolished." At the TGWU policy conference in 1981, at which a motion in favour of statutory control of wages was lost, the deputy general secretary reasserted the union's opposition to statutory controls on wages. Under Labour, unions such as the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades took no part in the proceedings to abolish the wages council for box makers, but welcomed the change as soon as it had been abolished. It supported the abolition of wages councils. At one time, the Labour party defended proposals to get rid of 10 wages councils. It seems to me that, these days, we cannot have a genuine debate on these matters, even though there has always been a strong body of opinion in the trade union movement to the effect that wages councils are ineffective.

The councils are also inflexible. They interfere with employers' ability to provide incentive schemes for their workers and freeze differentials at low levels. They prevent new businesses starting up and moving from low wages to higher wages as they progress. They are anachronistic. Why are workers with woven cloth covered, whereas workers with knitted cloth are not? Why are hairdressers covered when beauticians working in the same establishments are not? Why is cooked meat covered but not raw meat? The time has come for the wages councils to be abolished.

I am amazed that measures to provide rights to trade union members should be opposed. Sensible measures to deal with anachronisms such as the provisions governing pregnant women must be welcomed, and it is a pity that Labour Members oppose the Bill.

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The changes in the way in which industrial tribunals and the employment appeals tribunals work are important. At present, there are long delays and backlogs--indeed, I have written to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about one case involving a year's delay. Measures to allow chairmen of tribunals and the employment appeal tribunal to decide cases on points of law will drastically reduce such backlogs. That measure, too, should be supported. 9.14 pm

Mr. Sam Galbraith (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) : May I start by recognising the speech of the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley)? I appreciate that compliments from the Opposition are often considered mixed blessings, and so they should be, but while I did not agree with all he said, I appreciated his comments on wages councils and the way in which he presented them. I also noticed the pre-emptive strike on him by his party through the mouthpiece of the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) and I thought that the hon. Gentleman might require some assistance. However, he was able to present his case splendidly. Therefore, I look forward to further contributions from him in Committee.

The best that one can say about the Bill is that it is a squalid, mean- minded, mean-spirited and ill-conceived piece of legislation--in fact, one of the worst pieces of legislation to come before the House for a considerable time. It has little to do with workers' rights or industrial relations, and nothing to do with employment. It is all about trying to keep the Tory troops on the Back Benches in order and in good humour. The Bill is nothing more than a vestigial remnant from the past, and, like all vestigial remnants, it is utterly useless. It is a piece of outdated Thatcherism from which the world has moved on, but apparently not some in the Tory party.

It is not so much a Bill whose time has come, as many Tory Members tried to maintain ; rather it is a Bill whose time has passed, although the contributions from the Tory Members make it clear that many of them are living in the past.

The Bill is schizophrenic. It is not sure where it stands. It lacks intellectual rigour and honesty. There are good parts in it, such as the provisions on maternity rights, the transfer of undertakings and contracts, and the attempt to protect whistleblowers and the right to stop the job. But all those good parts are submerged in a deluge of mean and provocative clauses which attack a decent wage, decent terms and conditions, a decent future and, above all, the only organisation which will fight for all those aims--the trade union.

The whole basis of the Bill was given away by the hon. Member for Romford (Sir M. Neubert), when he said that the check-off provision was the basis on which the Government would bring about the fatal blow to trade unions. That is what it is about. It is not about protecting the rights of individuals, but about trying to kill off trade unions and their links and contributions to the Labour party. I am grateful to the hon. Member for being honest enough to say that in the House.

Apparently the Government are embarrassed by this tatty little piece of legislation. So they should be. I was not a Member when the Government started to introduce their industrial legislation in 1979 and through the 1980s, but I understand that the Tory Benches used to be crowded

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when that legislation came forward. It is significant that most Tory Members are so embarrassed by the Bill that they have been hiding.

The Secretary of State was so embarrassed that she did not want the Bill brought back until after Christmas, if not later. She had briefed industrial correspondents on that. Presumably she was hoping that she or the Government would move on, but she has not been successful, and the ideologues have won. The Government have every right to be embarrassed ; in future, they will be not just embarrassed but ashamed of the attacks on individuals brought about by the Bill.

Let us look at this curate's egg. On the one hand, the Government plan to abolish wages councils, saying that they are a burden on employers. On the other hand, they are introducing measures which we greatly value, such as the right to contract, maternity leave, and the transfer of undertakings, all of which in the Government's own language can be classified as burdens on employers. Why the contradiction?

Part of the Government's problem is that they do not know the difference between burdens and duties. It is the Government's job to place duties on employers to safeguard the rights of employees--the right to a decent wage, the right to decent conditions and the right to maternity leave and to a contract. Those rights are guaranteed by duties on employers.

I dare say that many employers consider those matters to be a burden. However, the Opposition do not take that view. We believe that they are duties that any reasonable society would expect their Government to place on employers. The main reason for the apparent contradiction in the Bill and its intellectual dishonesty, opposing duties in one sphere--wages councils--while supporting them in respect of maternity rights, health and safety and contracts, is that the latter measures are not ones that the Government wanted to bring in. The Government did not want to introduce maternity rights or provisions on health and safety and contracts. They did not introduce them through any generosity of spirit. They have brought them in simply because they were forced to do so by EC directives. The Government should not claim any credit for those provisions. The Government did not want them. They are in the Bill because they were forced on the Government.

Even when the Government are forced to include such measures, rather than concede them with a good grace, they have had to be dragged screaming and kicking into the latter half of the 20th century. The Government opposed the directives on maternity rights and the other beneficial effects every inch of the way.

Clause 26 deals with the transfer of undertakings. The directive about that has been around since 1977. The Government have been in office for 13 years, but they are only now introducing legislation to implement it in full. That does not show much commitment on the Government's part.

The Secretary of State made great play of the maternity benefits, but the Government did not want them and they fought them every inch of the way in the Commission. They had the original proposals watered down. That is another example of how the measure is mean in spirit, mean in action and simply rotten to the core.

The meanest part of the Bill is the part that the Government do want--the abolition of the wages councils. It is difficult to imagine a more pitiful response at

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a time of economic slump. With Britain in recession, unemployment rising, homelessness increasing and confidence collapsing, it is difficult to imagine a more inappropriate Government response. Then again, the Government are only being true to form. At the height of the recession, following their own gross mismanagement, their only response is to put the boot into some of the weakest in society, to remove from the weakest their only protection, the wages councils. It is typical of the Government and the Tories that, when they are in trouble, they can only attack the weakest. They attack workers earning as little as £2.60 an hour, which represents a take-home pay of about £80 a week.

The Government give many reasons for their attack on wages councils, and they are all as pathetic as the action itself. The Prime Minister gave some reasons in response to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith). The first of them was repeated tonight by the hon. Member for Teignbridge--that wages councils have been around since 1909 and therefore should be abolished. The Prime Minister said :

"These days, wages councils are an anachronism. They no longer have a useful role. They were set up in 1909 and they are not relevant to 1992."-- [ Official Report, 5 November 1992 ; Vol. 213, c. 407.] That is quite an interesting piece of political philosophy : because something has been around for a long time, de facto it must be abolished. The House of Lords has been around for much longer, and I therefore look forward in the next Parliament to a Bill to abolish the House of Lords for the same reason.

Mr. Donald Dewar (Glasgow, Garscadden) : Or the abolition of the Government.

Mr. Galbraith : As my hon. Friend points out, the Government have been around for a long time and they are also in line for abolition. The Prime Minister's next reason for abolishing the wages councils is that they are supposed to be bureaucratic. Whenever I hear that argument from the Government, I know that they are really struggling in their last refuge. Yes, wages councils cost just over £2 million, but new provisions in the Bill will cost that amount. Are those not bureaucratic? What is the difference? The councils and those provisions are not bureaucratic--they are the necessary price we pay to introduce decent terms, conditions and rights for individuals, and it is a price well worth paying.

Both those arguments are pulled together in what the Prime Minister said constituted a burden on employers. The Government's philosophy is laid bare --no burdens on employers, no regulations, no statutes, just the free market. Malnourished children up the chimneys and pregnant women down the mines--that is the Government's philosophy for society. There will be no rights, nothing for anyone, but there will certainly be exploitation.

The Government try to dress all that up as a measure to increase jobs. I heard much talk about that from the Conservative Benches. The Government contend that wages councils reduce employment. They have decided to abolish wages councils because of their ideology and they are now scrambling around for reasons. They have come up with the idea that they reduce employment. I am having

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difficulty finding evidence to support that case. They have trotted out the same hoary old studies on minimum wages. Even they must know that they do not necessarily apply to wages councils.

After considerable prompting by the hon. Member for Eltham, the Minister produced a long list of references, contending to support his case, showing a relationship between wages and employment. It was an impressive little biography, in nice alphabetical order, quickly pulled out of a computer. But the notable thing about the Government's list, which was also tripped out by the hon. Member for Teignbridge, is that it concerns the relationship between wages and jobs and not necessarily minimum wages.

Many of those studies are also fatally flawed. First, they presuppose the effect of a minimum wage on other wages, and set about calculating the extent of job losses based on the wrong premise. Because they work from the wrong premise, they get the wrong answer. The second flaw in their argument, and the reason that the premise is wrong, is that the labour market is not a homogeneous body, with every part responding similarly, and I should have thought that Conservative Members would have known that. For example, take the rise in women's pay to equal men's, following the Equal Pay Act 1970. According to Government philosophy, as applied to the abolition of the wages councils, that would have reduced employment because it led to a rise in average wages ; yet, far from falling, women's employment continued to rise.

The Government base their studies on the employment effect of wages councils and do not analyse any relative changes in wages. There is no conclusive evidence that wages councils decrease employment, and it may be quite the opposite. They may lead to an increase, and their abolition to a decrease.

In 1986, workers under the age of 21 were removed from the wages councils' responsibility. Wage rates for that group have fallen, but there has been no increase in the number employed. Nearly one in five young workers aged between 18 and 19 are registered as unemployed, which is double the rate among the rest of the population. Rather than helping young workers, removing them from the responsibility of the wages councils has led to their prospects deteriorating. That was effectively summed up in the study by Machin and Manning, which I am sure the Minister has read in full, as I have. They studied wages councils in the United Kingdom--the councils that the Government hope to abolish--and concluded that there is no evidence of an increase in employment as a result of a decline in the councils' effectiveness.

Mr. Michael Forsyth : Am I not right in recalling that that study excluded part-time workers, who are the majority of people covered by wages councils?

Mr. Galbraith : No, it did not exclude part-time workers, but I shall consider the Minister's question when I read the report again. The authors concluded that employment declined as a result of the decreasing effectiveness of wages councils, and added :

"There is no evidence that the activities of wages councils have acted as a restraint on employment in Britain in the 1980s. If anything, it is easier to make the argument that minimum wages have been good for employment."

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In other words, there is no evidence to suggest that wages councils reduce employment. Indeed, they have the opposite effect. All that was admitted by the Government. In reply to a question from the hon. Member for Eltham, who asked what effect abolishing wages councils would have on employment, the Under-Secretary of State replied that the Government did not have such information. So the Government want to abolish wages councils even though they have no information on which to base their prejudices.

On the other hand, there are strong arguments in favour of wages councils, and many have been stated in the debate. In particular, they prevent the good employer from being undercut by the bad. The abolition of wages councils means pay rates falling so as to compete, staff becoming transient and jobs being used merely as a step further along the ladder. So good employers cannot maintain their pay rates, cannot retain or train staff, and cannot provide a better service. The main argument in favour of wages councils is that of justice. My hon. Friends and I want not the abolition of wages councils but the abolition of the exploitation which will come from their abolition. With the abolition of wages councils, pay rates will fall, as my hon. Friends have pointed out. Indeed, that is the basis of the Government's argument, and they cannot run away from it. Their view is that wages will fall and employment will increase. That is the basis for a reduction in wages.

As part of the low pay review in the autumn of 1989, a study showed that the abolition of wages councils covering those under 21 resulted in their wages suffering. It also showed that, if the qualifying age had remained at 18, nearly 20 per cent. of the licensed hotels surveyed would have been paying below the minimum. A job survey by the Greater Manchester low pay unit in July 1988 found that 70 per cent. of jobs with advertised rates of pay were offering rates less than those that would have been paid had they not been under the protection of wages councils.

In a random analysis of cases referred to the Scottish low pay unit, the rates for those not covered by wages councils were absolutely atrocious. I will detail a few : hairdresser, £1.55 per hour ; catering assistant, £1.80 per hour ; security guard, £1.70 ; dental assistant, £1.95 ; clerical worker, £1.75 ; secretary, £1.67 ; car valeter, £1.67 ; care assistant, £1.75 ; and cleaner, £1.65. There was not one above £2 an hour.

That is the situation that the Government want to impose on the workers of Britain. Do they really want wages at such a pathetically low level? How long are they prepared to let wages fall? How much are they preparing for the exploitation of the workers? What standards do they want to set?

There are no reasons why wages councils should be abolished, and there is every reason to retain them. At the time of rocketing unemployment, with poverty increasing all round, the Government, with all their powers, pull themselves up to the grandeur of their office and all they can offer is a mouse--the abolition of wages councils--which is a response so pitiful, callous and inadequate that it is difficult to imagine it coming even from the present Government. Exploitation, poverty and injustice are clearly their vision for Britain.

The Bill is mean in spirit, spiteful in intent and callous in effect. It will do nothing to improve either the lot of

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employers or the economy of Britain. For all those reasons, we shall most certainly be pleased to vote against it in the Lobby tonight.

9.34 pm

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Michael Forsyth) : Listening to the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsde(Mr. Galbraith), I found myself wondering why, if he thinks that wages councils are such a good thing, the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) was so reluctant to tell the House that he would reinstate them after they were abolished by the House of Commons.

The changes that we propose in the Bill are entirely consistent with our successful step-by-step approach of the past 13 years. They will ensure that we have a legislative framework in tune with the needs of a modern economy : a framework which will contribute to, rather than impede, the promotion of individual rights ; a framework which will enable businesses to respond quickly to changes and opportunities in a competitive market ; and which will therefore help in the creation of new jobs, as my hon. Friends the Members for Romford (Sir M. Neubert) and for Meriden (Mr. Mills) said in their excellent speeches.

The Government's policy is clear, consistent and credible. But what of the Opposition's policies?

Mr. Graham : How will someone who is paid £3 an hour on a wages council scale be any better off if the wages are reduced to £2? Does that mean that for £1 an hour another person will be employed? Is that the logic of the Government's answer?

Mr. Forsyth : No, that is not the logic of the Government's answer. The hon. Gentleman ought to know that two thirds of the people covered by the wages councils are paid more than the minimum rate. I shall come to the point about wages councils later. The hon. Gentleman may well want to intervene again then.

We have all grown used to the ritual commitments of Opposition spokesmen to repeal successive Acts of Parliament since 1979. Those Acts have helped to transform the climate of industrial relations in Britain, for example, by introducing secret ballots for union elections and before strikes ; by the effective outlawing of most secondary picketing and secondary industrial action ; and by ending the iniquities of the closed shop--the abuses which my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Sykes) described so vividly.

However, I thought that tonight the sobering experience of a fourth successive electoral defeat, together with the appointment of a new, although hardly fresh, Opposition spokesman, would herald a long overdue acceptance of the Government's industrial relations reforms. Where the Government have advanced through step-by-step reform, the Opposition, like Napoleon pulling back from Moscow, have been reduced to grudging step-by- step retreat--an observation made by my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet (Mr. Batiste), in the light of all his experience of the Standing Committees which have considered employment Bills. I hope that his experience will be extended further by his participation in the Standing Committee which will consider the Bill, but that is a matter for others.

The House will have seen what the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden and the Opposition have to

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offer in response to the Government's clearly formulated and detailed proposals. First, they have made a thinly disguised commitment to hand back more power to the trade unions. Secondly, they have a crass commitment to the disastrous minimum wage policy which would destroy so many of the very jobs for which they want artificially to increase the pay. Thirdly, they unquestioningly accept the Maastricht social chapter, in a misguided attempt to bring in by the back door the failed socialist policies so decisively rejected by the Government and electorate.

Labour's proposals are about as worthy of serious consideration as a Norwegian entry to the Eurovision song contest. But the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras deserves a prize for sheer brass neck in claiming that the Bill is irrelevant to the main employment issues that we face.

What is irrelevant about measures to give employees new rights and protections at work, new rights for pregnant workers and new protections for those with health and safety responsibilities? How can the Opposition pretend that it is irrelevant to protect the democratic rights of individual trade union members?

Mr. Burden : If the Government are so concerned about individual rights, why does not the Bill contain a clause to restore to employees who have been working less than two years the right to go to an industrial tribunal to claim unfair dismissal? Why can people be sacked unreasonably when their only crime is to have been employed for less than two years?

Mr. Forsyth : I should be more inclined to take advice from the hon. Gentleman on that matter if he did not intend to go through the Lobbies tonight and vote against a Bill that extends employees' rights to go to industrial tribunals of the kind that he described. How can it be irrelevant to remove anti-competitive restrictions that hinder the creation of new jobs or to broaden the current straitjacket that regulates the management of the careers service? It cannot, and the Opposition know it.

The hon. Members for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham) and for Wallasey (Ms. Eagle) and others showed clearly that the Opposition simply do not understand--or perhaps cannot bring themselves to recognise--that there is and always will be a very fundamental and direct relationship between economic competitiveness and jobs. Measures to improve competitiveness--for example, by reducing anti-competitive practices and removing artificial barriers in the labour market--will help to create a climate in which more, rather than fewer, new jobs will be created ; and fewer, rather than more, existing jobs will be at risk.

Opposition Members have presented some ingenious arguments for the retention of wages councils tonight. Their views now are somewhat different from those of the last Labour Government. When the Opposition were last in office, they abolished 11 wages councils. The last Labour Government freed more than half a million workers from wages council control.

What has changed? I am puzzled. It is simple : when the Labour Government held power, they believed that they could dragoon people into joining the unions. Wages councils were seen as a threat to their recruitment plans

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and collective bargaining, as the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Sir H. Walker), who was a Minister at the time, confirmed earlier in the debate. The argument at the time was, why join a union if the councils set the rates?

The trade unions have now changed their views in line with the new reality. As their membership and enthusiasm for trade unions has declined, the wages councils have become the last refuge. With the wages councils, the brothers could still negotiate the wages even if they no longer represented the workers.

Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North) : Will the Minister give his own evaluation of those matters--he must have an opinion? What does he consider is a suitable minimum rate of pay for, say, a security guard who literally puts himself in the line of fire in the interests of society?

Mr. Forsyth : Oh dear, the hon. Gentleman has chosen a poor example because security guards are not covered by wages councils. He makes my point for me. The position for the 10 per cent. of workers who are covered by wages councils should be the same as for the 90 per cent., which includes security guards, who are not covered. They should receive a wage that reflects the ability of the employer to pay in a competitive manner.

What has been the Opposition's principled response? "Never mind the arguments or what we did in government", has been their response. The Labour dogs have continued to jump through the trade union hoops, as they always do.

I am still not clear what the Opposition's new policy is. I shall happily give way to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, who so gallantly gave way to me. He refused to tell us what he would do in the unlikely event of his being in government. We know that the hon. Gentleman would introduce the job-destroying minimum wage, but would he bring it in and keep the wages councils? Would he maintain the councils' present powers or increase them? Would there be new councils to cover the 90 per cent. of workers forgotten by the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson)? Would there be more bureaucracy followed by more bureaucracy?

The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras should tell the House what the Opposition's policy is exactly--it is all rather vague. The hon. Gentleman refused to give an undertaking that a Labour Government would bring back wages councils. I shall happily give way so that he can give that undertaking to the House--

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