Adjournment (Summer)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 23 July 1970.

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Photo of Mr Kevin McNamara Mr Kevin McNamara , Kingston upon Hull North 12:00, 23 July 1970

I am very grateful for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What I was trying to do was to take up a point which the Secretary of State made earlier when he rightly praised the attitude of the dockers and made some general noises about the making of profits. What I am saying is that in such an emergency as this that is one of the things which can create difficulties. Therefore, the House should be here and able to criticise any possibility of their being profiteering or unjust exploitation through the wrongful use of troops. On occasions the attitude of the dockers might appear to be unreasonable, but it might be that consignees or other people are being unreasonable.

I want to make another point, the fact that we are going to have the Pearson Report coming out early next week. It is one thing to say that the report will come out and that the Government will examine it. Fair enough. But there is more to it than that. The Government will take an attitude to it. They are bound to take an attitude to it. If the Pearson Report comes out and gives one particular solution the Government may say, "Right. We accept that. That seems reasonable and proper". Or they may be against it. What they cannot do, having set up a Court of Inquiry, is to sit back, as they appear to have done when negotiations were going on between employees and employers, apparently take no side—but that is a question of dispute—and just say, "Here is the report. Get on with it, boys, and try to work it out". That will not produce a solution. The Government will have to take an attitude, and we need to be here on Monday or Tuesday next week when the Government are taking up their attitude, because then it will not be an industrial matter only but a parliamentary matter, with the Executive taking an attitude, when Members of Parliament have the right to examine the attitude of the Executive and the decisions they are taking.

This question of the Pearson Report and the attitude which the Government may or may not take to it is one of primary importance. It is not good enough to say that if the strike is prolonged—and I hope it will not be—we shall be coming back here to renew the emergency powers. We should be here to have our say and to challenge and examine what the Executive is doing. This is of prime importance to us as a parliamentary democracy.

When a new Government come to power one normally expects them to take a little time to look at the problems, to put their manifesto into perspective and work out legislation. Everyone understands that this is right and proper, al though most Governments generally have something prepared which can be put through quickly. One would not normally criticise the length of the recess because the Government obviously want time to do this. But there are occasions when it is foolhardy for a new Government to take this attitude, and a prime example of this is when the country is in a state of emergency, and I shall, therefore, vote against the Motion.