Shrewsbury 24 (Release of Papers)

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Anderson]

I will run the debate; the hon. Gentleman should just sit there and listen.

In 1972, the unions, exasperated at the failure to achieve progress, called the first and so far only national building strike ever held. Four months later, the strike was called off after the unions forced their employers to concede the biggest increase in basic pay rates ever. It was a victory for the working man, but a bitter blow for the employers, who were determined on revenge. They were not alone. The Tory Government were rattled by the success of one of the least well-organised groups of workers in this country and were determined to help their friends in the building industry.

To pursue that revenge the employers’ body, the National Federation of Building Trades Employers, went on what can only be described as a fishing expedition. It wrote to its members on 20 September 1972, two weeks after the strike ended, seeking any information related to possible violence and intimidation during the strike. The clear intention of the federation was to pass the dossier on to the Home Secretary for his consideration so that he could tighten up the law on picketing in industrial disputes. The federation specifically asked its members for information on any incidents available to them, including signed statements from any eye-witnesses; copies of any photographs from local newspaper photographers of, as the federation said, “the more notorious occurrences” that would give strong support to the submissions; and any other kind of suitable evidence that members might have come across, such as tape recordings and personal photographs.

It was not just the members of the federation who were being written to. In a letter to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Robert McAlpine complained that there was no problem with the law governing pickets and their activities, but that the problem was rather down to

“the lack of enforcement of the law by the police”.

That was a clear shot across the bows of the people who had the responsibility of ensuring that the law was adhered to on the ground. The police, in whom we put our faith to ensure that the law is upheld properly, were being told by an employer that they had not done their job properly.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Anderson]

Yes, but will my hon. Friend please be quick?

[Mr Cunningham]

I will be as quick as I can. It is not only in the building trade that blacklisting has gone on since the ’70s; it has gone on in other industries. We have recently had debates about that. More importantly, the Tories have not changed. Look at the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, because that tells us a lot. They want to make the law worse for working people.

[Mr Anderson]

My hon. Friend is right. Some things, sadly, never change.

When the dossier was completed in October 1972, it was passed on to the then Home Secretary, Robert Carr, who immediately instructed the chief constables of West Mercia and Gwynedd to investigate events in one particular part of the country—that is, the area in and around north Wales. He obviously wanted to pursue the agenda laid out by the employers in the dossier despite reports such as those in the Financial Times—hardly the workers’ friend—that said:

“This document is itself flawed since it suggests the existence of a sinister plot without being able to substantiate the allegations.”

Those involved who are in the House to listen to the debate today believe that the Home Secretary gave the job to the police so that they would put bones on the case that the employers were trying to make.

Why was that important? If it could be shown that the activities of the pickets were deliberately planned to intimidate, the charges laid against them could be much more serious than those for the argy-bargy that was the norm on picket lines. In particular, if conspiracy could be proven, the potential to lock up some of the leaders of the dispute for a very long time became a reality.

The choice of north Wales as the focus for police action was not an accident. Despite evidence of much more aggressive activity in other parts of the country, the Home Secretary deliberately focused on north Wales. That might be purely coincidental, but I can assure the House that no one involved in the campaign believes that to be so. North Wales was a part of the world where the McAlpine family had a huge amount of political influence. They were not only influential players in the Tory party but one of the biggest developers in the building industry, including at the site in Brookside in Shrewsbury that was the epicentre of the case against the pickets. In addition—again, this may be purely coincidental, but I doubt it—the high sheriff of Denbighshire, the man responsible for law and order in the area, just happened to be the ninth member of the McAlpine family in succession to have held that post.

As the police investigation gained momentum, 31 pickets were arrested on 14 November—two months after the end of the dispute. The men were released without charge, but three months later, on Valentine’s day 1974, 24 of them were rearrested. A barrage of charges— 242 in total—were levelled at these men, all of whom were charged with intimidation. Much more seriously, the first six to go on trial were charged with conspiracy to intimidate contrary to common law. This was the charge that the employers’ body wanted to see, because it gave the establishment the chance to send pickets to jail for long periods. The intent was clear—lock these people up and the rest of the trade union movement will know that legitimate trade union activity, including picketing, could now be treated as a criminal act.

So how did these workers become embroiled in this legal minefield? On 31 August, a joint meeting of members of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians and the Transport and General Workers Union was held in The Ball and Stirrup pub in Chester. At the meeting, which was the first time many of those present had met each other, a request was read out from union members in the Shropshire area seeking support from other comrades throughout the north-west to successfully prosecute their case in their area. The meeting agreed that a group of pickets would travel down to Oswestry on 6 September to meet local activists and then decide which locations to picket.

That meeting is crucial to the issue. Anyone who has ever been involved in picketing, and looking round this room, I see a number of people who have been, knows that, especially when you are going outside your own area, you have to plan properly—basic stuff including where people are going to be picked up, when they can expect to get home, and where they are likely to be throughout the day. You also need to ensure that anybody going picketing is aware of the need to behave properly at all times and give them clear information in case there are problems. The meeting was simply a planning meeting, but crucially, when the case went to court, it was classed as a meeting to conspire to intimidate workers on the ground. No evidence was ever laid to substantiate that claim, but it was the crux of the case and it was what led to imprisonment.

The prosecution were so intent on getting jail sentences imposed that they even charged a person with conspiracy who was not present at the planning meeting. John McKinsie Jones had been collecting union subs in the downstairs bar of the pub, and he left before the planning meeting even began. He was nowhere near the meeting, yet amazingly he ended up being sentenced to nine months in jail for conspiracy to intimidate. How on earth can someone be part of a conspiracy when they are not even at the meeting where it is discussed?

It is interesting to compare what happened to the pickets who were charged with 242 offences between them and those at other courts who had been involved in similar activities. Earlier in the year, two trials were held in Mold. At the first trial, only minor charges were upheld by the jury and the maximum fine was £50. At the second trial, the jury found all defendants not guilty of anything. One of the main reasons for this was that in Mold, prior to the jury being selected, the lawyers for the defendants exercised their long-held right to challenge potential jurors. As was the right of the defence laywers, they were looking for people who might have connections with the building industry or might be hostile to trade unions. As a result of the cross-examination, a number of prospective jurors were excluded from the jury.

However—again, forgive my scepticism—after those trials, but before the Shrewsbury ones began, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, another part of the Tory hierarchy, unilaterally banished the right of lawyers to challenge jurors. This was done without warning and contrary to decades of practice, and without any prior consultation with the legal system or other interested parties. In order to try to get a fair trial despite these clearly deliberately motivated changes to the legal process, the defendants’ lawyers requested that the trial of those charged in relation to picketing in Shrewsbury be held in Mold or be moved to an area of the country that was more neutral than Shrewsbury would have been. The judge flatly turned down that request and set 3 October 1973 as the date for the first hearing.

The trial judge, Mr Justice Mais, was a surprise choice for such a high-profile, politically charged case. He had little, if any, experience in cases of this magnitude, or in criminal cases at all; his expertise was mainly in rural and ecclesiastical matters. His behaviour throughout the case led many to question his capability and impartiality. A number of issues gave rise to this concern. For example, when the jury were called to bring in the verdict, they were unable to come to a majority decision—they were tied at eight to four. The judge asked them to keep going but they said, “We’re too tired to go on today—we need to have a break.” So he agreed to give them a break and let them stop in a hotel overnight, but he closed by saying:

“You should go to the accommodation prepared for you…and I suggest that you continue your deliberations there.”

That was an extraordinary thing to suggest. The only place where a jury should consider any case is in the jury room and nowhere else, be it a hotel or anywhere else.

If that were the judge’s only error, it would still be wrong, but throughout the trial his behaviour was, to say the least, questionable. The campaigners provided me and other Members of this House with reports from David Altaras, a junior barrister who defended Ricky Tomlinson at the first trial. In 2012, he gave a statement in which he said:

“Given the fact that I regularly adjudicate criminal trials myself I have no hesitation in saying that, during the trial, the Judge’s conduct towards the defence frequently crossed the line between permissible and impermissible behaviour and amounted to a display of obvious hostility towards the defendants. He took particular exception to John Platt-Mills who represented Des Warren and to Des Warren himself. I vividly recall an occasion when Mr Platt-Mills was cross-examining a witness (probably a police officer) and the Judge took off his wig and threw it on the bench in irritation. I recall occasions when he threw his pen down and turned to face the wall when either a defendant was giving evidence or the defence were adducing evidence in cross-examination. In addition, I can remember his rather rude interruptions during cross-examination.”

He went on:

“During the Judge’s various outbursts, I remember members of the jury nudging one another. My own view at the time, a view shared by other members of the Defence team with whom I discussed the Judge’s behaviour, was that the jury (a) could have been in no doubt where the judge’s sympathy lay and (b) could have absolutely no doubt that he loathed Mr Platt-Mills.”

So we had a court case where the legal system had been changed to deny jury challenges, that was held in an area where the defendant’s legal team were genuinely concerned about the lack of neutrality and was presided over by a judge whose inexperience was matched only by his partiality.

But it gets even worse. The campaign team’s researcher, Eileen Turnbull, has trawled through documentation that is in the archives at Kew. She has uncovered a letter dated 25 January 1973 from the then Attorney-General, Peter Rawlinson, to the then Home Secretary, Robert Carr, in which he advised the Home Secretary that in his view, having discussed the case with Treasury Counsel and the Director of Public Prosecutions, these

“proceedings should not be instituted.”

That was the highest legal advice in the land. We remember how, in the previous Parliament, my party was, quite rightly, lectured by then Opposition Members about the failure of Tony Blair to listen to the Attorney-General in relation to the Iraq war. In this instance, the same authority advised the Home Secretary not to pursue the case. The Home Secretary ignored him, and we have to ask why. The people who went to jail are clear about the reason. They have no doubt that the pressure from the building industry, particularly from a man who would soon be appointed as deputy treasurer and chief fundraiser to the Tory party, was overwhelmingly more important than the views of the people entrusted with advising on legal issues at the highest level.

We must remember that this pressure had been felt by the police at the highest level, with the result that in the autumn of 1972 they set up a huge fishing expedition. A team of detectives were billeted in north Wales and 800 statements were taken, of which 600 were discarded. This was despite the fact that on the day in question—6 September 1972—not only were no arrests made, but the police actually congratulated the leaders of the pickets on the disciplined way in which they conducted their activities. We must also remember that this was all done at the behest of the building employers’ federation.

Another issue of grave concern was the decision during the trial to allow an inflammatory television programme to be aired on the very night of the prosecution’s summing up. Under the title, “Red under the Bed”, the programme was an attack on this country’s left-wing political parties and trade union activity. It specifically referred to the ongoing trial. The day after it was aired, Judge Mais dismissed the defence’s attempts to have the TV company charged with contempt. Indeed, he criticised the defence for having the temerity to raise the matter. What is of even greater concern is that the papers that have already been released show that the then Government, right up to the then Prime Minister, were involved in assisting the programme to be produced.

There is clear evidence in the paperwork already in the public domain that a special unit was set up in Government to undermine legitimate trade union activity and to paint left-wing political activity and parties as subversive, despite their legitimate right to agitate in a modern democracy. That was all being done behind closed doors and it would never have been exposed without the determination of those who still seek justice today.

These men went to jail as a direct result of the onslaught of the establishment over a prolonged period, which was clearly designed to deter the wider labour movement from using industrial action to pursue its legitimate claims. Des Warren was given a three-year jail sentence and Ricky Tomlinson a two-year sentence, and John McKinsie Jones—the man who was not even present at the so-called conspiracy meeting—went to jail for nine months. Other men received suspended jail sentences. At the second trial, three more pickets—Brian Williams, Arthur Murray and Mike Pierce—were given jail sentences. At this and the subsequent third trial, others were also given suspended jail sentences.

These men and those who have been campaigning for more than four decades contend that they went to jail and got criminal records as a direct result of direct political interference in this country’s political and judicial systems by very strong personalities who pressurised politicians, senior police and members of the judiciary to take part in a witch hunt and to send out a clear message of intent that people involved in industrial disputes would face exceedingly serious consequences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

My hon. Friend may not recall that at that time a number of employers’ organisations, including Aims of Industry, were trying to influence industrial relations.

[Mr Watson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.

So we have evidence that the Government and the security services were working closely with television production companies, newspapers and secretive organisations that were the forerunners of today’s blacklisters to produce propaganda to discredit trade unionists. The present Government posted a response to the e-petition on the website, claiming that the withholding of the information was due to an “intelligence and security instrument”. Why? This was a strike organised by building workers 40 years ago with the aim of improving their pay and conditions of work.

If Members want to know the thinking of industrialists at the time, they should read Lord McAlpine’s book “The Servant”. He wrote that the servant

“must have his own network of informants and men who will assist him. The servant must always know how to use the network of the State.

Dealing in deceit, as the servant must, great caution must be required. Avoid small deceits: like barnacles on the bottom of a ship, they build in the minds of people whom you may need to convince in a large deceit”.

What greater deceit can Members imagine than depriving those young men of their freedom and liberty?

The Stasi published their files after the Berlin wall came down in 1989. I think that we can publish ours now.