Hon. Adam Butler: asked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will consider legislation to provide an automatic national adjustment to wages and salaries, related to changes in the cost of living index.
Hon. Adam Butler: But would not an adjustment of this kind remove one of the principal justifications for wage demands at present? It would not be inflationary. If my hon. Friend will reconsider the question, will he think in terms of a flat-rate payment and not a percentage based on earnings?
Hon. Adam Butler: asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many working days have been lost due to strikes taking place in opposition to or in protest against the Government's proposed industrial relations legislation.
Hon. Adam Butler: I am sure that the majority of right hon. and hon. Members will join in condemning the Communist-directed political strike on 8th December, but, in view of the questions and views expressed in the Lobby on Tuesday, may I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the need for even greater publicity to explain what the proposals in the new Bill are?
Hon. Adam Butler: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye so that I may make my maiden speech. I am very pleased to make it in the last few days of Mr. Speaker's active service in the Chamber. My constituents in Bosworth will excuse me if I do not give a long description of the constituency's excellence. We are down-to-earth people who live and work in West...
Hon. Adam Butler: In this hypothetical case, is it an official or an unofficial strike?
Hon. Adam Butler: The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) said that this was the first occasion on which he had spoken during this Committee stage. It is unfortunate that he has not previously contributed out of his considerable experience, but I hope that we shall hear more from him. When the Bill becomes law, it will be clear whether the two cases which he cited were fair or unfair industrial...
Hon. Adam Butler: The hon. Gentleman has forestalled one of my questions to my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General. I should like clarification as to whether sympathetic action in support of unfair sympathetic action would itself be unfair. For the moment, I am reading Clause 86 as though the action which is to be considered unfair would follow the original unfair action; but I should welcome an...
Hon. Adam Butler: The Bill is meant to prevent or reduce unofficial action which in some circumstances might call for sympathetic action. There is no undermining of trade union solidarity where there is a fair industrial practice; that is to say, a fair, constitutional strike. I can see no objection to Clause 86 as it stands, and I therefore support it.
Hon. Adam Butler: I apologise for breaking into the hon. Gentleman's remarks so early and before he has had a chance to develop his argument, but I did not refer to sympathetic action taken in respect of fair industrial practices. I hope that we shall soon move on to the next Clause, because that deals with the more important matter. I confined myself to Clause 86.
Hon. Adam Butler: The hon. Member makes this comparison between the position in the United States and the position here. In the automobile industry in the United States, there are, at the end of probably a three-year agreement, these long strikes, which may run, normally, for six or eight weeks—perhaps longer, but that is the normal length. Our own automobile industry lost in 1970 very roughly 25 per cent....
Hon. Adam Butler: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will now make a definitive statement of his policy on the future of the industrial training boards, in particular the Construction Industry Training Board.
Hon. Adam Butler: When does my right hon. Friend expect the Construction Industry Training Board to become financially viable and to be able to repay the Government loan, and what increase in percentage levy does he expect to be necessary to bring about viability?
Hon. Adam Butler: Having listened to the debate for over three hours, I am inclined to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) that we are taking too much time on this single new Clause, as we have, due to the continual repetitive speeches by hon. Members opposite, on so many other Clauses. If I am right in supposing that the timetable for Report is that desired by the Opposition...
Hon. Adam Butler: I will let the hon. Member debate that one with my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, but I think he will agree that 10 per cent. of those practising at the Bar are not members of the Bar Council. So in that sense a closed shop is not operating in the legal profession. We have heard throughout the debate, evidence of this tendency to sneer at the white-collar worker—[Horn....
Hon. Adam Butler: In certain cases, there has been a continual reflection on members of certain professions in the higher echelons of the white-collar workers. Amendments Nos. (ooooo) and (nnnnn) suggest that the Opposition accept the principle of a special register. They cannot have it both ways. They seem to think that it would be right for trade unions to go on a special register because it gives special...
Hon. Adam Butler: I will correct only a few of the many errors which were perpetrated by the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Ted Fletcher) in his list of suppositions. The first is about the Bill as previously drafted, particularly in respect of entry on to the provisional register by trade unions. Under Clause 74 unions will be entered on to the provisional register regardless, and it is under Clause 75,...
Hon. Adam Butler: In the Bill there is no case that the Registrar could require a ballot to be taken in this case for registration or deregistration. But the hon. Gentleman referred to the trade unions as being the bastions of democracy. If that is so, would he favour a ballot to find out what the members of his union, in a democratic society, would like to do in the case of deregistration?
Hon. Adam Butler: If I understood the hon. Gentleman aright, he said that a breach of the code would be an unfair industrial practice, but he will agree that the code has no binding legality.
Hon. Adam Butler: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that a breach of this code would be an unfair industrial practice?
