(Increase in Membership of the National Coal Board.)

Part of Clause 7. – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 5 December 1967.

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Photo of Mr Michael McGuire Mr Michael McGuire , Ince 12:00, 5 December 1967

My right hon. Friend is clairvoyant. I was coming to that. I was about to ask if he was appointed because he is well known to be sympathetic towards conventional power stations. If anyone wants to advocate an argument through a daily newspaper his is the best newspaper, because it has the highest circulation. If Mr. Cecil King and the Daily Mirror advocate the building of conventional power stations—and they can do it more eruditely than I can—this is a good reason for keeping him on the Board, as long as he continues to advocate common-sense policies.

The other part-time member is a professor, Professor Kahn. There is a place in this society for professors, but I believe that this House has learnt to its cost that people place too much credence on what professors say. They all say at the same time very different things. If we laid economists, statisticians and professors end to end they would still not reach agreement. I do not know what branch of economics Professor Kahn specialises in. No doubt he brings a powerful intellect to the activities of the Board.

This proposal will be seen by the ordinary miner in the sense that, however erudite and however wide the activities Cecil King engages in, these are not the qualifications required of a part-time member of the Board. My right hon. Friend should seek to appoint as a part-time member someone recognised to have detailed knowledge of the day-to-day workings of the Board and who knows something of the fears and aspirations of the ordinary man in the coal fields. A person of such qualities on the Board would go a long way to reinforcing the argument that part-time members have a particular contribution to make.

I understand that these members will be in addition to the Chairman. We have a deputy chairman and Mr. Arthur John, Director of Finance. There is also Bill Webber, Director of Industrial Relations; Mr. Grainger, the Member for Science, and Mr. Sheppard, the Member for Production. I believe that two whole-time posts are vacant—those of the marketing and staff managers. I wonder whether the staff manager appointment could be dealt with by the spokesman for C.O.S.A. If the men in the industry are to be reassured that their interests will still be safeguarded by the Board, it would be better to see a man of the qualities I have described appointed to overall charge of staff policy.

I do not quite accept the argument that we should seek to put these five divisional chairmen on the Board—these poor souls who are not in a position, apparently, to be able to relay information, perhaps because no one takes any notice of them. Apparently, they do not know whether they have power over the area boards. That is a fantastic and ridiculous argument.

One may ask why the Board is being reconstituted in this way, why the old divisions have been carved up and why the title of divisional chairman is being retained. If it is asked, "What does the divisional chairman do and does anyone take notice of him when he is doing it?" the answer, apparently, is that the new idea is to make him a full-time member of the Board. To dispel any accusation that we are creating "jobs for the boys" while doing away with the men who produce the coal, we should not be consolidating and increasing the jobs of those who do not produce. The way to do that, if those divisional chairmen have no powers, is to give them the powers. I cannot accept that they do not have the powers. I cannot accept that when they know the problems in the regions, to make them effective they have to be planted on to the N.C.B. as whole-time members to make a different cast. That does not make common sense.

I ask my right hon. Friend not to pursue the question of having the extra members, certainly not in this form. I have no objection to appointing, as we should have already, three part-time members. Let us appoint someone who is recognised as knowing something about the grass roots of the mining industry so that when men go to the rostrum at trade union conferences and ask what the Union is doing, the divisional secretaries and presidents of the National Union of Mineworkers can explain the policy and show that there have not been jobs for the boys. The object of the exercise is to make a stronger and better Board in the interest of everybody concerned and to dispel the argument that it is a case of jobs for the boys.