Employment Protection

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 July 1979.

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Photo of Mr Eric Varley Mr Eric Varley , Chesterfield 12:00, 24 July 1979

That is true. All this has to be seen against the background of the Government's industrial policies. The fact that in the last few days £233 million has been lopped off regional assistance will force many of the small firms the Tories want to support to declare even more redundancies. We have to look at things against the overall background of the Budget. Many more workers will be out of a job. We do not know how many.

The Secretary of State is very coy about revealing the statistics. He shelters behind the time-honoured ministerial practice of saying that he does not make forecasts. He has admitted that unemployment will rise. Such things as the rise in MLR will place more people on the dole. Over the next few months there will be bankruptcies galore in the private sector, among some of the small firms that the Tories claim to support. In the new phraseology, jobs will be squeezed out of the public sector by penal cash limits, after the present Cabinet discussions.

The Secretary of State has made his reputation as the "nice guy", the man who can get on with the trade unions. He got away with that before the general election, but I doubt whether he will be able to do so over the next few months. I remember Mr. Alan Fisher, of all people, immediately after the general election, saying "I hope that the Prime Minister appoints Mr. Prior Secretary of State for Employment." I wonder what trade union leaders think of his performance so far.

Now we can judge the right hon. Gentleman by his actions, which so far have shown that he is pursuing policies which are extremely damaging to the trade union movement. First, we have the mean-minded cuts in the training programme and the programme of the Manpower Services Commission. Then we have his proposals for industrial relations legislation which are irrelevant and will prove as unworkable as the Industrial Relations Act 1972.

Whatever else the right hon. Gentleman was thought to be, we were always given to understand that he was the great consulter, that he would at least talk. There is no evidence that he has consulted the TUC about the order. He sent the TUC a letter, and then decided to lay the order nevertheless. If he has the interests of good industrial relations at heart rather than the unsubstantiated prejudices of the Conservative Party, he would do better to take this mean-minded order back and think again. Because I suspect he will not, we shall vote against it.