Cammell Laird Workers Imprisoned in 1984

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) for securing this important debate. I declare that I am a proud member of the GMB trade union.

I will start by paying tribute to the 37 Cammell Laird workers and their families—a number of them are here in Parliament today—and all the campaigners who have been fighting for justice for so long. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), who I know wanted to be here today, for his tireless campaigning over decades.

I fully back the campaign to secure truth and justice for the 37 Cammell Laird workers who were imprisoned in Walton jail in 1984. Those 37 workers and their families have now suffered the further injustice of almost 40 years in which truth and justice has been denied to them by the state. Sadly, many have passed away in that time. The workers were deliberately targeted to try to break the industrial action they were partaking in to save the shipyard and hundreds of jobs. As part of the state’s attempt to demoralise the workers taking strike action across the country at the same time, we saw the same modus operandi at Shrewsbury and Orgreave, with the state using brutal tactics to break industrial disputes. It then implemented a cover-up to deny the victims the justice they deserve. It is only thanks to the remarkable efforts of campaigners like those in the Chamber today, as well as the likes of Eileen Turnbull and all those involved with the Shrewsbury 24, that that fight for justice was eventually won last year. But those from Cammell Laird and Orgreave are still denied that justice today.

The industrial action at Cammell Laird happened against a backdrop of rapid de-industrialisation by the Thatcher Government. There was a decimation of jobs across Merseyside, where between 1978 and 1981 34,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. I grew up in Liverpool at that time, and it was an absolutely devastating period that we still have not fully recovered from. Remember that the Thatcher Government were contemplating the managed decline of my great city at the same time.

Cammell Laird was a national asset that the Government were preparing for privatisation by halving the workforce. In 1984, 1,000 more planned redundancies were announced and the strike and occupation took place in response. The targeting of trade union members at Cammell Laird was truly despicable and culminated in an injunction seeking to remove strikers occupying the rig, enforced by the police. Then there was the arrest and month’s imprisonment of 37 workers at Walton jail—a category A prison in which they all suffered greatly.

The 37 trade unionists were tried and convicted in their absence. They were denied the opportunity to defend themselves in court and a fair opportunity to clear their names. Once released, the Cammell Laird 37 never worked at the shipyard again. They were blacklisted and they lost their redundancy and pension rights. For standing up for the future of their communities, they were punished by the state, with the effects lasting a lifetime.

I want to read a testimony of Allen Small, who is a good friend. He says,

“In 1984 I was a 19-year-old apprentice at Cammell Laird. Myself and one other apprentice Dave Griffiths refused to cross the picket line and we joined the strike. Dave and I were sacked for refusing to attend work. I struggled for many years to find work. I applied for many jobs and welding courses but was always unsuccessful. Eventually I retrained as an electrician and found work in shop fitting and on building sites in London”—

away from the north west. He continues:

“Unfortunately Dave passed away 10 years ago.”

That shows the devastating impact of standing up for your community and fighting for a trade union.

Truth and justice are still being denied almost 40 years later. In 2014 the European Parliament ruled that the British Government had no basis for the convictions and should apologise and remunerate the 37 pickets. The Government have done nothing to this day. Appallingly, no records that relate to the policing of the dispute, British Shipbuilders’ handling of industrial relations or the Government’s response have been published. That is despite the European Parliament Committee on Petitions calling on the UK Government almost a decade ago to release all relevant papers and information to allow justice for the Laird strikers.

As someone who was at Hillsborough in 1989 and now chairs the all-party parliamentary group on public accountability, I have lived and seen the scale of cover-ups by the British state. It is a shameful history that we have—from the nuclear test veterans to the contaminated blood scandal, from the Birmingham Six to Hillsborough. There are many, many more I could talk about for hours. If we continually have a state and establishment that act with impunity and evade responsibility and accountability for their actions and the consequences of those actions, how do we ensure such injustices will never again be perpetrated?

That is why a Hillsborough law would be so important in ensuring that justice is not an abstract concept for the working class in this country who have been wronged by the state. We should all expect to have that in a functioning, fair and democratic society. That is why the fight to end the injustice seen by the Cammell Laird 37 is so important for the people involved and the country at large. Justice should not be a pipe dream, but a reality.

I close by asking the Minister this. Where is the Government’s apology and acknowledgement that there was no basis for the convictions? Will the Minister agree to a public inquiry with the power to compel disclosure? Anything else is an abdication of leadership and decency by this Government. The campaigners and the people who suffered deserve nothing less.