Industrial Relations

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 4 Rhagfyr 1973.

Danfonwch hysbysiad imi am ddadleuon fel hyn

Photo of Mr Alex Lyon Mr Alex Lyon , City of York 12:00, 4 Rhagfyr 1973

It is fair to say that he was a councillor, calling himself a ratepayers' councillor. But anybody who believes that he was not a practising Conservative politician is more removed from reality than I thought. I do not suggest for one moment that his antecedents have played any part in his judgments in this court, but they lay him open to that kind of charge, and for that very reason it was insensitive of the Government to put him in that situation.

Secondly, instead of allowing Con-Mech to ask for a writ of sequestration to enforce the judgment, he himself, as the court, issued out the writ of sequestration. In so doing, he moved outside the perspective of a civil court and acted as if he were a criminal court, himself seeking to penalise the wrongdoer. If he had left it to Con-Mech, it may be that in the situation that obtained in that particular industrial dispute Con-Mech would not have moved and then the whole issue would not have arisen.

There is another factor, too. If Con-Mech had moved for a writ of sequestration, then the firm would have been coming to the court with dirty hands, because it has been condemned by the CIR as the main reason why this dispute has arisen, and it has refused to accept the CIR judgment and to apply union recognition in this area. In those circumstances, the firm would have had dirty hands and the court could have said that in those circumstances it was not right to enforce a writ of sequestration. Therefore, I take the view that there is some room for criticism there.

Whether there is room for criticism of the judge for going outside the court and speaking at a private dinner is, perhaps, a little debatable. Clearly, in these rather heated circumstances, he felt that he needed to explain what had happened. But it would have been better—and here I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson)— had he done so in court. He could have easily done so. He could have easily reinstated the case before the court and issued a formal statement, setting out the kind of reply that he gave to the accountants in Glasgow, and it would not have caused such offence.

But, in the final analysis, this judge acted in relation to this dispute as he was intended to act by the Government. He made on order, which was inevitable when the defendants refused to appear before the court, the order was not accepted by the union and it was therefore in breach. Then, their being in breach he was bound, if the complainant moved for a writ, to issue out a writ of sequestration and therefore to use union funds.

I do not think there is much justification for the complaint that this money came out of the political fund. It is true that that, again, was an insensitive act. It would have been far better if the judge, or the sequestrators, had made sure that the funds which they were to use came from the general fund. But the Act itself states that in punishment for contempt, as distinct from compensation for damages, a fund of this nature can be attached, and there is nothing in the 1913 Act which makes it impossible so to attach. So that, even though it was an insensitive act, the sequestrators were legally entitled to take the political fund, and the judge was entitled to take it even had he known, which he probably did not.

But in those circumstances one still asks : was it a wise thing to do, knowing full well that the upshot of this chapter of events would be that his court had pursued a policy of political victimisation, not only of the union but of the Labour Party? I think that the judge lacked a certain amount of sensitivity, and that it would have been better had he proceeded differently. But, in the final analysis, he is put in this position because the Government insist upon having this Act on the Statute Book, and the only way of getting out of this situation, where decent men such as my right hon. Friends the Members for Newton (Mr. Frederick Lee) and Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), who have a constitutional respect for the law deeply ingrained in their bones, are now being forced into a situation where they can countenance law breaking, is to take this Act off the statute book. It is that kind of tragedy that is forced upon us by this inept and futile Act, and it is about time that it went.