Shrewsbury 24 (Release of Papers)

David Hamilton Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram]

I will develop that point at the end of my speech and explain why it is so wrong that it has taken so long even for the matter to be debated in this House.

The people we are talking about were arrested on trumped-up charges, received a dodgy trial and were given unsound convictions. That would not be allowed and would not be acceptable today, and it should not have been allowed and should not have been acceptable then. It was a legal process that would shame a third-world dictatorship.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon has suggested, the exploitation of workers and the unacceptable and unsafe working conditions in which workers were forced to operate were the bedrock of the first ever national building workers’ strike in 1972. As a result of that national strike, which was settled on 16 September 1972, the building workers succeeded in achieving an across-the-board increase for all trades working in the construction industry. There was, however, enormous political anxiety as a result of that victory, fuelled by a targeted lobbying campaign by the National Federation of Building Trades Employers. Shrewsbury 24 campaigners firmly believe that the end of the strike was in fact the beginning of the employers’ campaign to have pickets prosecuted, and to use that as a deterrent should they ever have the temerity to take further industrial action.

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that that was the precedent that started the ball rolling for all the disputes that came after? That dispute set the goal, which is why it is important to have transparency. After that court case came ’74, ’84, and the miners’ strike—the legal position changed at that point.

[Steve Rotheram]

Absolutely, it was used as a battering ram to send a message not just to construction workers but to working class people throughout the country who decided to take industrial action.