Shrewsbury 24 (Release of Papers)

Jim McGovern Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House is seriously concerned at the decision of the Government to refuse to release papers related to the building dispute in 1972 and subsequent prosecutions of the workers known as the Shrewsbury 24 and calls on it to reverse this position as a matter of urgency.

The debate is long overdue but I urge colleagues not to intervene unless they feel they have to, because there are a number of Members who wish to speak and time will obviously be limited.

Nineteen seventy-two was a momentous year for industrial relations in this country. A weak Government had twice declared states of emergency, first in February during the first miners’ strike for almost half a century, and secondly in August during the national dockworkers’ strike. Matters were made worse by the Government’s attempts to prevent unions from defending their members’ rights, wages and conditions at work. It was clear that of all the work forces in the United Kingdom, the building industry was a bigger mess than all the rest put together. Wages were low, there was no job security and exploitation was rife through a system known as “the lump.”

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Anderson]

Quickly.

[Jim McGovern]

As I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, of which I am a member, has conducted an inquiry into blacklisting. Would it be fair to say that the Shrewsbury 24 would most certainly have been blacklisted after the strike in 1972?

[Mr Anderson]

I thank and forgive my hon. Friend for his intervention. There is absolutely no doubt about it: people were blacklisted. One real sadness about what we are discussing today is that 40 years on from that disgrace, similar things are still taking place. The Scottish Affairs Committee should be congratulated on the great work it has done in this area.

The lump was a system whereby people were paid cash in hand, meaning not only that no income tax or national insurance contributions were paid—so the state was robbed—but, vitally, that workers were uninsured against accidents or worse while they were at work. That was extremely serious. A building worker was dying every day on average on building sites across the UK and, in the three years before 1972, almost a quarter of a million industrial injuries were reported, with many more not being reported.