Clause 27. — (Conditions of Employ Ment, Pension Rights, &C.)

Part of Bill Presented – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 January 1967.

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Photo of Mr Ian Mikardo Mr Ian Mikardo , Poplar 12:00, 23 January 1967

Little more need be said on this subject, but for those who did battle with the Minister on this subject in the Committee there is a special duty, which is for me genuinely a pleasure as well, to thank him in the warmest terms for what he has done in putting down this Amendment and for the terms he used in moving it.

When the Bill was first presented to the Committee, the Clause which dealt with this subject was, word for word, a copy of what had been in the 1953 Act, and that is a copy of the standard common form Clause in all the other nationalisation measures. A number of us urged upon the Minister that we ought to have learned something since 1953—no, it is earlier than 1953–1949. We said that we ought to have learned something in the years that had passed and should do something better.

It is general practice for Ministers to take the view that no ideas contain much wisdom or value that do not emanate from their own Departments. It is a great credit to the Minister that he showed enough flexibility—and if I may say so without offence, teachability—to take ideas from the back benches of the Committee, especially in the way in which he has put down this Amendment and carried out quite fairly—not 100 per cent., but very fairly indeed—the undertaking he gave to incorporate the views put to him, and in many parts of his Amendment actually using the words of Amendments which were proposed by others in the Committee. That is a rare thing to happen in the House under Governments of whatever colour, and the Minister is breaking new ground in dealing with the matter in this way.

Having thanked him, I want to endorse what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) about access to records. There is the occasional matter where commercial prudence dictates secrecy, and that is why none of us objects to the final detail of what is to be supplied by way of information to workers' representatives resting with the Corporation or the publicly-owned companies. I would say at once that in my experience this consideration of commercial secrecy in this context happens in practice very seldom indeed, and is often used as an excuse where it does not really exist. The plain fact of the matter is that anything one can safely tell to 30 members of the management of a company, without fear that it will be passed on to its competitors, one can safely tell to half a dozen shop stewards, because there is more chance of managers being got at, as we all know to our cost, by competing companies than of shop stewards being got at by competing companies.

But, of course, there is a residual area in which one does not even tell members of the management, in cases my right hon. Friend quoted. One would not want to object to that information being in the hands of the Corporation or company, but because that is so I want to put it to my right hon. Friend that it is all the more necessary for him to show that it is intended that this should operate in the spirit as well as in the letter.

My right hon. Friend used one sentence which was very cogent in this connection. I understood him to say—I am sure I did not mishear him—that it was his intention, so far as it concerned him, that there should be no limit on the information provided to workers' representatives, except in these little, narrow cases of commercial secrecy. If I understood him aright, I think that that goes a long way to meet the points which we have been putting to him, but I hope I did understand him aright.

I do not say this out of theory: I am a workers' representative on one of the joint councils of one of the nationalised industries. I am talking about actual practice, 20 years of it in this regard, and I want to ask my right hon. Friend, if he seeks to get the permission of the House to say a word or two more, whether he intends, for example, that workers' representatives shall have the right to see the cost sheets, the forward order book, the forward capital budget, the projected list of plant to be purchased or plant to be renovated; whether they will have the right to be informed in advance both of plans for expansion and for contraction, not only of output as a whole but of particular departments; whether they will be allowed to see the deviation figures on the budgetary control returns which are given to departmental managers. These things are the raw material of management.

Here we are asking workers to participate in management, and if we are asking them to do that we must give them the same tools with which to do the job of management, or they will not be able to do it. In that situation I should want to see the budgetary control sheet which shows whether I have done better than my budget or whether worse, and why that was, and to use that to decide on changes, and if I am going to discuss proposed changes with my chaps, I should have that, too.

So I repeat to my right hon. Friend; do the chaps have the right to see the cost sheets, the interim draft P. and L. accounts, the forward order book, the capital budget, the revenue budget, the budgetary control returns, the deviation figures on the budgetary control returns? If the answers to these questions are all in the affirmative, then I am sure there is nothing to worry about, and all of us will welcome this Amendment without any reservations whatever. I end as I began, by saying to my right hon. Friend, even if he does not give me affirmative answers to my few questions, "Thank you very much so far." If he does say "Yes" to my questions, a double "Thank you".