Part of Orders of the Day — Industrial Organisation Bill – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 25 July 1947.
I would like to assure the Parliamentary Secretary that he need not get worried I am not going to ask him a question, whether I think that he would answer it or not. I want to say—and I speak, neither as an industrialist nor a trade union leader — that I welcome this Amendment. I believe that it is essential that we should do nothing whatever to create suspicion about this Bill in any section of industry. I wish that the Parliamentary Secretary would not look at me in such an unkindly way. I am not going to say anything unkind to him. I merely wish to congratulate his chief on having accepted the bigger and wider view on this matter. I know that he is trying to remove distrust. We had a good deal of discussion on this point earlier. The Bill has gone through its various stages. I am glad that we have been able to accomplish something and that we have done something to relieve what is a very natural and just suspicion. I feel sure that these statistics will not be used for other than absolutely necessary purposes and that they will be kept secret. I think that it would have been right for some ordinary member who represents the trade, especially the trade unions, to get up and to say how glad he is that the employers' side have been helped by the Government on this point.