Oral Answers to Questions — Industrial Situation

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 25 July 1972.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mr Jeremy Thorpe Mr Jeremy Thorpe , North Devon 12:00, 25 July 1972

The fact that one mentions someone like Lord Devlin or Lord Donovan and the latter is dead is no cause for mirth. The working party must be under the chairmanship of somebody who is respected as being totally impartial, and I gave two examples.

There are certain sections of the Act relating to unfair industrial practices which will have to be scrapped—there is no doubt about that—and in exchange there must be some movement by the trade unions towards acceptance of registration. There will have to be some new form of conciliation machinery, and agreements will have to be referable to the Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices Acts so that it can be seen that nobody in this country—nobody—is able to abuse a monopolistic position.

We should then move on to a works constitution Measure very much on the German model, but varied to the needs of our economic and industrial society, which would make works councils mandatory for any firm with more than 200 employees.