asked the Prime Minister what conversations he had with the CBI and the TUC about the workings of the Industrial Relations Act.

I have discussed the Act briefly at my meetings with the CBI and the TUC on economic problems.

Will the Prime Minister tell the House whether it was the intention behind the Act actually to cause strikes, as happened yesterday? Is the Prime Minister aware that there have already been 30 cases like Con-Mech, and that more are pending, in which incompetent employers who cannot sort out their own industrial relations problems resort to the law? Will he follow the example of sensible employers who have agreed to ignore the Act and put this divisive and irrelevant legislation into cold storage?

Every count which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned in his supplementary question is wrong. Yesterday's strike was called as a political demonstration, and it was largely a failure, because only one in five of the union membership responded. That shows how little support there was for this political demonstration.

As for cases before the courts, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will study the Davenports case, which came before the courts a week before Con-Mech. It was almost exactly the same type of case. The T & GWU used the facilities of the court, and the case is now under discussion by the CIR in order to reach a settlement. That was the orderly and lawful way of handling the matter. If the engineers had done the same they could have produced the same result without contempt or fines.

Will the Prime Minister bear in mind that, whilst the TUC and the CBI have experience and points of view which should be properly taken into account, for the most part they represent the big battalions on either side? The Government still have a responsibility, which I hope they will meet, to look after the smaller platoons of consumers and small businesses.

Yes, Sir. I accept that absolutely. The sole purpose of the Industrial Relations Act and the court's actions in enforcing the law was to see that disputes could be settled within a legal framework and by conciliation instead of solely by the use of power by what my hon. Friend calls the big battalions. That was the purpose of the Act and that is what can be achieved by it.

Is not the Prime Minister aware that, irrespective of the theories of the Act or the theories of the lawyers, we now have a situation in which the courts are determined to smash one of the biggest unions in the country and that that union is determined to resist? This eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation will not cease tomorrow; it will continue. Will not the Prime Minister bring out the Official Solicitor to stop it? What does he intend to do to stop this confrontation leading to its ultimate conclusion?

Neither the Act nor the court is responsible for any confrontation. The only union responsible for a confrontation—and it is now isolated in the trade union movement—is the AUEW. If, as I have said, it had carried through the same procedure as the T & GWU, there would be no confrontation of any kind whatever.