Shrewsbury 24 (Release of Papers)

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Gerald Howarth

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

No, I am not going to give way at the moment. It is very important that people should understand the conditions that applied at the time. People who were going about their ordinary activities were subjected to intimidation. I became the hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood in 1983 and I saw constituents of mine who were trying to go to work in Littleton colliery having bags of urine thrown at them by striking miners from south Wales.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

No, I will not give way. This was in the day of the flying pickets. These people would go around the country supporting trade unions that were engaged in that kind of intimidation, even though they themselves had absolutely nothing to do with the strike or industry in question.

The statistics make interesting reading, because it was at this time after the second world war that Britain was going substantially down the tubes. Successive Conservative Governments had failed not only to turn back but to arrest the ratchet of socialism that had driven through this country in the immediate post-war years. [Interruption.] I see that that has huge support on the Opposition Benches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman who proposed the motion.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman obviously knows the answer to that question. I have no idea. I was not involved in the trial and I was not at the trial, but I was involved in the public debate at the time.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I will give way to the hon. Lady in a minute.

I remind Opposition Members that in Margaret Thatcher’s excellent book, “The Downing Street Years”, she wrote about the Government’s attempts to deal with trade union legislation. At one point she says that

“when a dispute did occur the trade union was able to exercise what amounted to intimidation over its members—‘lawful intimidation’ in the unhappy phrase coined by Labour’s former Attorney-General, Sam Silkin.”

At the highest levels of the Labour party at that time, such practices were basically endorsed. I say to right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches that the country has moved on. If the Labour party wishes to occupy the Government Benches once again—I very much hope that it will not—its Members must understand that the public out there do not want to see any return to such behaviour or to hear any sympathy expressed for it.

The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) has been extremely persistent and I am delighted to give way to her.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is talking about the dispute. The motion is about the request for papers. The Government cite national security as a reason for not disclosing those papers. What does national security have to do with an industrial dispute?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I will address that point in one moment. I only wish to make two further points and one of them will address the hon. Lady’s question.

Robert Carr, who became a peer in the other place—I will continue to refer to it as the other place, Madam Deputy Speaker—was accused of conniving with the police and the security forces at the behest of the construction industry. That is a conspiracy theory. Those of us who knew Robert Carr cannot imagine that he was anything other than a charming, polite and reasonable Home Secretary. I do not think that he was in the business of conniving.

Let me conclude by coming to the point that has been raised a number of times.