Mr John Horner: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Holroyd Committee has taken nearly as long to deal with this single service as the Royal Commission took to deal with the whole of local government in England? With direct fire losses now running at over £100 million a year, is it any wonder that firemen are questioning whether the Department is dealing with the matter with the urgency that it demands?
Mr John Horner: I am glad to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) in his tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Board of Trade. We have had references to "In Place of Strife", and the suggestion has been made that, somehow or other, these offensive Clauses are a hang-over from those previous considerations. We have also been told that the Pearson Report is not to...
Mr John Horner: I am obliged to you, Mr. Speaker. My intention was to try to show how it could come about that staunch opponents in the Standing Committee of "In Place of Strife" could now seek to defend the position of the Minister of State. Some hon. Members have referred to an N.U.S. document, with which all of us have been supplied, which makes it clear that the union is absolutely and without...
Mr John Horner: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend. In Standing Committee, a great deal was said about multiple remedies and about choices open to employers and masters of ships to use various remedies, including the remedies to which objection is being taken tonight.
Mr John Horner: I am very grateful for that further explanation. It seems that what the House is being asked to agree is that from the passing of the Bill there should be only two remedies open to the employer or the master. There may be a third. It has been argued most cogently that that third remedy is now necessary. Much has been made about drunken seamen. I do not want to belabour that point. I can...
Mr John Horner: I was about to take the House through a glorious Saturday night, but you checked me, Mr. Speaker. A position could arise in which the offence of drunkenness referred to in the Clause was of such a kind that the master felt obliged to use the power in the Clause and not the power vested in him as master, nor the power in what I call the "steam hammer" Clause. When a ship is in dangerous...
Mr John Horner: I am seeking to obey your injunction Mr. Speaker. I shall not wander too widely, but I must be allowed to make my point. A crew has gone ashore and then comes aboard and is the worse for drink. No one is worried, but the master sees that the ship is approaching dangerous navigational straits. The powers of the master are irrelevant. He may have dealt earlier with cases of drunkenness under...
Mr John Horner: The new Clause and the related Amendments will produce a hiatus. There will be a position in which only two remedies will exist. That view is shared by the National Union of Seamen and many of my hon. Friends. The supporters of the new Clause, however, do not see that hiatus continuing permanently. They wish to draw on the experience of the industry. I am with them on that. With the long...
Mr John Horner: We are discussing the Merchant Navy and not civil aviation and someone has to make a start. I am disappointed with what my right hon. Friend has said. If the Board of Trade rightly reserves the power to prevent a man from following his profession because of alleged misconduct, or incompetence, or other reason, and an inquiry makes it clear that, while properly suspended, he was nevertheless...
Mr John Horner: The hon. and gallant Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles) spoke of the dangers of disciplinary committees. I admire his consistency. On every occssion that this matter has been raised he has made his opposition plain. He has introduced a variety of points, and has always condemned the proposition. Tonight, he reminded me of a bosun's " peggie ", whose job, among other things,...
Mr John Horner: Everyone hopes that the discussion earlier today, and the objections raised by one section of the industry to certain provisions, will in no way tarnish or diminish the pride which the Government are entitled to take in honouring the undertaking they made about three years ago that they would seek to reform the old, outmoded, creaking legislation. They have done that. If I have any misgiving...
Mr John Horner: I want to express my gratitude to the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), and my sympathy with the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths). This matter is before the House because of circumstances which arose some months ago in the fire service, where the fire authority was anxious to provide an augmented pension for the widow of a fireman who lost his life when he was...
Mr John Horner: Is it not a fact that this provision of four-wheelers extends to anyone in the Armed Forces at the moment who may be disabled as the result of any accident or any illness in the Armed Forces today?
Mr John Horner: I want to express my warm support for the Bill and my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris). I am aware of an hon. Member of this House who has during the last 12 months been obliged to find his way through the intricacies of the various services that are available to people who are stricken down with paralysis, and who are obliged to...
Mr John Horner: This is a very complicated point. Would my hon. Friend agree that while it is not possible to promise what the contracted-out employee will draw in pounds shillings and pence, nevertheless it might not be impossible to assure the contracted-out employee of a return? After all, he will be paying nearly three-quarters of the nominal contribution rate throughout his entire working life. There...
Mr John Horner: The happy few.
Mr John Horner: This has been an extraordinary debate. No doubt when my right hon. Friend winds up he will say that it has been a far-ranging debate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said, the debate has dealt with the structure of the basic scheme which is not before us in detail. We are not having a Second Reading debate on the Bill. One hon. Member opposite went so far as to...
Mr John Horner: This means that the master would have to surrender his disciplinary powers, and this would entail looking at the Clauses in the Bill.
Mr John Horner: Does my right hon. Friend accept that many hon. Members on this side of the House were pleased to hear him say today that what is important is not a change of rule but a change of attitude? That being so, will he also accept that the Government's insistence upon writing the rules of the T.U.C. for it and their refusal to accept a directive couched in almost identical terms is regarded by many...
Mr John Horner: Would my right hon. Friend accept from me a warning, wholly deficient, I hope, in emotive words, that she should draw no hard conclusions about the outcome of the Ford strike in relation to the attitude of the trade union movement to her White Paper?