Orders of the Day — Coal Industry

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 March 1972.

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Photo of Hon. Adam Butler Hon. Adam Butler , Bosworth 12:00, 20 March 1972

I should first like to inform the House that my reading matter includes the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror and the Morning Star. Furthermore, my headgear is sometimes as various and at other times nonexistent. Having referred somewhat lightly to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro), I hope to return to his speech a little later.

I begin with the favourite opening of hon. Members opposite in a coal mining debate in which they say that we on this side of the House have no great sympathy for the coal mining industry, and there are no votes to be found in that sector. I totally refute this argument, particularly from a personal angle, and I would be prepared to guarantee that votes are to be found in that industry.

We have sympathy, but we also have something that seems to be lacking among Opposition Members—a sense of realism in our approach to this subject. A wage of £35 for a face worker does not seem to be too much money for the job that is undertaken. Today we read that the militant section of the National Union of Mineworkers will be looking again next year for substantial increases and a figure of £40 for those workers is mentioned. I suggest that in the context of the present wage structure, a figure of £40 is not necessarily wrong for face workers. But even a figure of £35 will put out of work thousands of miners. If £40 were to be granted this would cost many thousand more jobs in the industry. This is the realism of the matter and this is where I go part of the way with my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South.

My quarrel with the Supplementary Estimate is that it absorbs part of the wage increase. A strike in private industry must be paid for by private industry. The company concerned must meet the cost of the strike and the cost of the wage claim, if any, that is granted, and sometimes goes out of business because it cannot afford it. Most often it puts up the price and the public has to pay.

In this case the Government have chosen to carry part of the cost of the strike. Again the public pays because the £100 million which will be voted in this Bill comes from the taxpayer. I query whether it is right for the taxpayer to carry the cost of the strike in this way. Even if a compromise can be found—and it might be logical to suggest that the cost of the strike in terms of loss of production might be carried—it would be wrong to carry part of the cost of an additional wage increase.

My hon. Friend said that a figure of 7½ per cent. broke the C.B.I. initiative. I suggest that since the settlement was a "special case", then an increase in price above 5 per cent. should also be treated as a special case. If the correct mathematics for a £90 million wage settlement was a 10 per cent. price increase, or more, this should have been added to the price of coal.