Debate on the Address

Part of Sessional Orders – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 2 July 1970.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Leslie Huckfield Mr Leslie Huckfield , Nuneaton 12:00, 2 July 1970

I hope that the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. David Mitchell) will forgive me if I do not particularly follow him in his remarks.

I want to preface my remarks by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Carter) on the excellent maiden speech which I am sure that the whole House will agree that he made. I have always thought that Parliament could do with much more wisdom and experience representing what actually goes on in the car factories and workplaces. I am sure that my hon. Friend will provide just that. I look forward to hearing contributions from him in the future.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Mr. Tom Ellis) on his excellent contribution. In describing the relationship which he had with the representatives of the National Union of Mineworkers at the colliery which he used to manage, he described a situation which is very familiar to me representing, as I do, a fair number of coal miners. It is an industrial relations situation which I hope that we shall hear referred to in this House on many more occasions in the future. These two contributions have made their point already and, since obviously we shall spend a great deal of our time in the coming Session on industrial relations, we shall hear a lot more from my two hon. Friends.

Like the hon. Member for Basingstoke, I was grateful to hear some mention in the Gracious Speech of pensions for widows between 40 and 50, pensions for the over-eighties, and a constant attendance allowance for the disabled—rather belated but very welcome inclusions, nevertheless.

I found the rest of the Gracious Speech disappointing. I agree with one of my hon. Friends who regretted that it did not include any definite statement of intention about the future of areas with large coal mining populations. In this House, I represent not a northern constituency, but one which comprises a great number of coal miners with many question marks hanging over them. My constituents are anxious to know what is to happen to the proposals contained in the Coal Industry Bill which was before the House before the Dissolution.

Miners are conscious of the great efforts and endeavours to help them made by the Labour Party when in government. In 1967, it was this party which made available over £950 million of borrowing powers to help the National Coal Board. It was this party which made available over £100 million to help the Coal Board with some of the more serious human consequences of pit closures. It was this party which gave sums to the Electricity Generating Board and other industries to help them burn more coal.

Those are the kinds of measures which were contained in the Coal Industry Bill. We heard no reference to them in the Gracious Speech. We have heard no reference to them so far from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. I hope that my constituents will be told very soon exactly what kind of support the Prime Minister and his Government intend to lend to the coal mining industry.

Representing a Midlands constituency, I am on the receiving end of many of the miners transferred from the northern constituencies of some of my hon. Friends. In many senses, they have staked their futures in coming to my constituency on the confidence which I hope that the party opposite will retain in the industry. By coming to coal mines in the Midlands, they thought that they would have a guaranteed long life and a prosperous future. They are still looking for that.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I may call you that, may I congratulate you on assuming your office? I have always been in favour of the advancement of women. I am very conscious that we are both making history in this place, since I was obliged to have a discussion with Mr. Speaker and the Clerk at the Table about what to call you. We discussed the possibilities of "Madam" and "Miss". Ultimately, we settled on the title that I have used. I hope that it will be acceptable to you.

As I was saying, the concern of my constituents for the coal mining industry has not yet been alleviated by the Government. My constituents deserve some assurance, and I shall do my best to see that they get it as soon as possible.

In the course of the election campaign, there have been numerous references to increased flexibility with industrial development certificates. Mine is not a constituency which falls within a development area. Consequently, we do not receive the full grants and assistance which many northern constituencies do. The previous Administration showed great understanding in the flexibility with which they operated the industrial development certificate policy in my constituency. I hope that the new found flexibility about which we have heard from the party opposite will not mean that the chances of my constituents getting further certificates will be damaged. In the main, it is with these kinds of policies that my constituents have been concerned, and that concern is not removed by what is said in the Gracious Speech.

I come now to what are probably the two central points of my remarks. I was sad to see that the subject of transport, especially public transport, received no mention in the Gracious Speech. The new Minister of Transport has only just been appointed. He will need a great deal of time to study the complicated Transport Act which this party put on the Statute Book. The right hon. Gentleman will find himself confronted with a very serious situation in public transport, not least in the West Midlands.

In many parts of the West Midlands, especially in North Warwickshire, public transport has been hovering round the crisis point for the past six months. We have had a terrible winter for bus services. Bus services have improved slightly as staff recruitment has increase. I hope that the new Minister will soon address himself to the kind of problem which has arisen this week in the area. In Birmingham, the West Midlands and East Midlands Traffic Commissioners have had proposed to them yet another fares increase by the Midland Red Bus Company. On this occasion, a 25 per cent. increase is sought. The company has appeared before the traffic commissioners with an application for a fares increase almost annually. In my constituency, it is costing ordinary people £2 or more every week to travel between the constituency and their work. Many old-age pensioners can no longer afford to travel on public transport, mainly because the local Conservative-controlled council will not grant concessionary bus fares but also because of the annual increase in fares.

I hope that the new Minister will not only give serious consideration to the near crisis point at which public transport is now arriving but that he will examine closely the whole future of the traffic commissioner system, the independence of traffic commissioners under the 1960 Road Traffic Act, and his own powers in this direction. If an annual fares increase is to be granted to bus companies and if this 25 per cent. increase is granted, my constituents will lose confidence completely in the whole system of traffic commissioners. I shall do all that I can both inside and outside this House to make sure that the increase does not take place, but what is urgently required is some re-examination of the independence of traffic commissioners, the appeals system to the Minister, and so on.

We have heard a great deal and no doubt will hear more in the future about the state of industrial relations. I am a member of the Transport and General Workers' Union and of the National Union of Teachers. Both have been in the news a fair amount recently. I represent some very active and vigorous trade unionists in Nuneaton, Bedworth, and Coventry. It is our kind of trade unionism. It is the kind of trade unionism where the man on the shop floor is entitled to play his part and does so to the full. It is a voluntary kind of trade unionism. It is a grass roots trade unionism, and that is not at all the trade unionism envisaged in the Gracious Speech. British trade unionists and the way in which they act are unique. Indeed, the Donovan Commission, which this party set up, described them as exactly that. We do not have the fat corporation presidents with the magnificent salaries and the big air-conditioned offices and cars. We give the men on the shop floor the chance to have their say, and I hope that they will have their say in the future.

In the Midlands, which is the centre of some vigorous trade unionism, trade unionists share the concern which has been expressed. In the Coventry area, we have achieved a high income and a very good set of working conditions, and we have set some precedents in wage negotiations. But these have not been given by employers: they have been fought for every inch of the way. I am not prepared to stand by and see the future of trade unionism in my constituency threatened and everything which my constituents who are trade unionists stand for threatened, and I am not prepared to stand by and see the future of voluntary, free, participating collective bargaining sacrified by the threat of these proposals.

It is obvious that the party opposite does not understand the shop floor and does not want to understand it. They are working on their old Selsdon Park emphasis of, "If it moves and you do not understand it, bash it good and hard." That is what trade unionists feel. The law does not have a place on the shop floor. The law should not dictate the pace of industrial relations. It is better procedures in collective bargaining which are wanted, and not the introduction of the law.

Therefore, whatever emerges from the policies of the party opposite, we should not have any magnificent attempt to bring the American, Canadian or Australian style of bargaining into this country. Statistics show that our methods are far better than theirs. We have something unique. It may need procedural reforms, but it generally works. It will not work if we bring the law on to the shop floor.

Many of my constituents have been very worried by the references in the Gracious Speech to the proposals to change the system of support for the farming community. We know that we enjoy cheap food because, in the past, Governments of both parties have favoured a system which gives a guaranteed support to the farming community. I understand that it is now the policy of the party opposite to abolish that, whether or not we get into the European Economic Community. Indeed, even their own Front Bench spokesman has already said that the abolition of all these subsidies could increase food prices by £300 million or £350 million. If this is the party opposite who say that they will keep prices down and who pretend to have the interests of the housewife and the consumer at heart, it is time that they examined the whole of their future agricultural policies.

Apart from that, many of my constituents are concerned about the proposal of the party opposite to renegotiate or reexamine the whole system of housing subsidies. There is a Conservative local authority and a Labour one in my constituency. The Conservative one has not a particularly brilliant council house building record, but if the party opposite carry out the proposals which they have made about local authority housing subsidies being renegotiated my constituents will face some of the biggest rent increases which they have ever faced. These are the proposals which have not received much explanation in the Gracious Speech: they have just been referred to. But it is the reference to them which has caused great concern in my constituency and throughout the country.

It is a pity that the Leader of the House is not here, because I have something to say which is particularly addressed to him. There was nothing in the Gracious Speech—perhaps we should not expect it—about the future of the committee system. I have been a member of the Select Committee on Estimates and the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, as well as numerous Standing Committees. What has impressed me above all is the great contribution to this House which has been made by the Select Committee on Science and Technology. I refer particularly, although I was not a member of that Committee, to the great reputation, progress and status, as well as the contribution to the status of this House, achieved by Sub-Committee D of that Select Committee, which was examining the computer industry. It is that kind of Committee which has brought the Press and others here and has let them see that the House of Commons does other things than argue in this Chamber.

It was the activities of that Sub-Committee which led people to conclude that other things were going on here. I would not like that Sub-Committee's activities wound up. I should like Select Committees extended. I should like to see one particularly on transport and for most other Government Departments. This is the way in which we can show the people that we really care and in which we can examine things very often on a non-party basis. Above all, this is the way in which hon. Members can get to the facts.

I was disappointed by the Gracious Speech. My constituents will have been very concerned if they thought about some of the proposals which were not in it or which were in it. What I want for them and for all the people is confidence in their future, in their prosperity, and some kind of guarantee that their living standards will go on rising. I am sorry to say that, so far, what I have heard from that side and what I have read in the Gracious Speech does not give me any long-term guarantees of that.