Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 12:00 am ar 18 Rhagfyr 1973.
I cannot see that there is any difficulty in understanding the purport of the regulations, nor do I imagine that they could be applied in a manner that would be contrary to the interests of the community or the individual.
The purpose of Regulation 32 is plain. To begin with, it is headed "Sabotage", and the offence that can there be committed is one that involves a specific intent. It is the intent
to impair the efficiency or impede the working or movement of any vessel".
If a person decides not to work overtime, or to go slow, he does not infringe these regulations. If he indulges in industrial action with a specific intent to do damage of the kind referred to in Regulation 32, he infringes the regulations, and I believe that it is quite right that mischief of that kind should be caught by the regulations.
It is nonsense to suggest that the person who goes slow is in a worse position than the person who goes on strike.
Regulation 38 contains the protection that is afforded to the striker and to the person who peacefully persuades another person to go on strike and who does not have the intent to commit sabotage, which is the intent referred to in Regulation 32.
Taking the two regulations together, the striker is not put in a better position than the person who goes slow, and the person who goes slow is not put in a better position than the striker. The striker is protected if he is acting in a legitimate fashion and is merely peacefully persuading. The person who goes slow is protected if he is only trying to get better terms and conditions for himself and his workmates. If a person goes slow with the intention of doing great damage to the community by committing sabotage, he is rightly caught by the regulations. If a person goes on strike with the intention not of improving his working conditions but of committing sabotage, he again is caught by the regulations.
It is worth pointing out that people need not be frightened by these provisions. They have always been a part of emergency regulations and, what is more, I gather that in our history there has not so far been a prosecution under any of them. But it is right that these powers should exist in case anyone should be minded to think that he can indulge in any sort of industrial action when he likes, even though his motive is not to improve his working conditions but is purely and simply to damage the community in the way envisaged in Regulation 32.