Manpower and Productivity

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 3 March 1952.

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Photo of Mr Ellis Smith Mr Ellis Smith , Stoke-on-Trent South 12:00, 3 March 1952

I want to make a few observations about the Notification of Vacancies Order. The Minister was apt to skip over this, but those of us who have had past experience of this kind of Order are bound to feel concerned about it. We have had similar assurances on previous Orders, and we remember how they were administered.

I am pleased that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has repeated the Chancellor's statement that there is no intention of attempting to compel workers to take jobs they are unwilling to take. That is good as far as it goes, but I want to ask a few questions about this and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will give definite replies to them.

One of the main principles which guided the Beveridge Committee in coming to its decisions, upon which basis legislation was introduced, was that everyone who paid insurance should be entitled to benefit on the basis of his or her insurance record and that it should be no longer looked upon as a lottery, as it had been in the past in Britain.

If that is still the position—and it is, because no changes have been carried through the House—can we have an assurance that in no circumstances is it intended to introduce any new basis for the administration of the National Insurance Acts or to introduce any new ideas about the eligibility for benefit of any applicant? May we have a definite and unequivocal answer to that question?

I want to ask a few other questions based upon a letter which I have received from a member of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress who is also a member of the National Advisory Council and the general secretary of a trade union. He states that he and his members are uneasy about the Order. He then refers to a concrete case in which the Coventry employers last September took action to prevent highly skilled engineers from moving from one establishment to another and from one area to another.

It was not until the skilled men refused to carry on with their employment that the order was withdrawn. To the credit of the Coventry and district engineering employers' organisation, when their attention was drawn to it they also assisted in asking the employers not to insist on carrying out the order.

It is possible for that kind of thing to be done under the administration of the new Order. I agree that, on the face of it, there is nothing in the Order except what the Minister has said, but we know from long experience that it is its administration about which we need to be concerned.

I shall produce concrete evidence later on to show that the skilled engineers have had a raw deal in this country during the past 37 years. Whenever the nation has been in difficulties and whenever anyone has been asked to work harder and faster, it has always, apart from the miners, been the skilled engineers who have been asked to do so. [Interruption.] Does any hon. Member doubt that?