Cammell Laird Workers Imprisoned in 1984

Justin Madders Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Christopher. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) for securing this debate and for an excellent and forensic introduction to why this is such an important issue and why justice needs to be done. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of the GMB trade union. I also add my tribute to all the others that have been made to my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) for his tireless work campaigning on what is clearly a very important issue to him personally. I know he would have been here if he were able. But this issue should be important to anyone who cares about justice, truth and accountability. We have to ask ourselves a fundamental question: how did an industrial dispute end up with the arrests and imprisonment of 37 men? Let us not forget that, in its origins, this was a civil dispute—the criminal courts did not need to get involved—and it was no different to thousands of other disputes that have happened over many decades in the history of this country.

The men who were arrested were not told why. Is that not a basic tenet of our law? Who even did the arresting? The official position is that the police and bailiffs were involved in the eviction, but some have said that it was members of the SAS or the SBS—the Special Air Service or Special Boat Service—who were engaged. I do not know how accurate that is, but it is an important question, and if there is a grain of truth in it, it points to a much deeper level of Government involvement than has so far been admitted. That is an important reason why we need to look at the issue in more detail.

As we have heard already, the Thatcher Government were intent on placing Liverpool into a state of managed decline. I do not think that was a secret to the people living on Merseyside at the time; they certainly felt the effects of it every single day. We know that one of the papers released under the 30-year rule showed how Sir Geoffrey Howe urged the Prime Minister not to spend any public money in Merseyside, because he described it as “stony ground”.

We do not need reminding of how the decade was characterised by the Government’s war against trade unions, driven by an ideological determination to weaken workers’ rights to organise collectively and to take industrial action. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West very clearly set out, the decision to re-tender the contract after it had already been awarded to Cammell Laird was clearly part of that political attack and managed decline strategy.

Frankly, we should not be left to speculate and have questions left up in the air. We need full transparency. I think if the Government have been interfering in industrial disputes to the extent of getting the special forces involved or re-tendering contracts that have already been awarded, that is something that we all ought to be concerned about, wherever we come from on the political spectrum. It certainly would not be out of keeping with the Government approach at the time.

We have also heard that the men did not receive any redundancy payments. I believe they were told by the management that they were deemed to have dismissed themselves—complete legal nonsense. It was a nonsense in 1984 and it is a nonsense now, but, importantly, it means that the men were denied their redundancy payments, which lawfully they should have been entitled to.

We also have to raise the question of judicial impartiality. Since the Taff Vale case, the courts have had a reputation of being pretty unsympathetic to the ability of working people to organise collectively. Lord Justice Lawton, at the opening of the appeal, said that

“you cannot really expect any leniency to be shown unless and until each and every one of these men signs a piece of paper apologising for what happened, and expresses some regret”.

I think it is pretty clear that any idea of judicial impartiality was thrown out of the window that day.

How can anyone expect a fair hearing if they are told they should apologise before the case has even started? Why was it necessary to rub salt into the wounds of the eviction by adding 30-day prison sentences to the charges? A legal assessment of the strike commented that imprisonment is usually avoided because it inflames industrial disputes rather than terminates them. It is clear to me that putting those 37 men in prison was a clear statement of intent—one that strikes me as calculated, excessively punitive and almost certainly political in its origin. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West stated, imprisonment was not the normal punishment in disputes of this nature. There have been hundreds of similar disputes over many decades where imprisonment was not sought, so why was it insisted upon on this occasion? Given that, it is little wonder that the European Parliament’s Committee on Petitions ruled in 2014 that the response to the occupation was disproportionate, and that the Government should release all documentation relating to the dispute and apologise to the men. I know the Government generally do not like things that come out of Europe, but they should listen to that ruling. I believe that when Labour is in office, we will honour it.

The stock response that we will hear from the Minister to our request for an inquiry is that this is not a matter for the Ministry of Justice, but I believe it is a question of justice. It is also a question of accountability and transparency. If the Ministry of Justice is not responsible for dealing with this matter, will the Minister please tell us where the campaigners and the hon. Members who have been fighting for this cause for so long should take their request?

Those men, who were thrown in prison and then blacklisted for taking industrial action, have not received any form of justice whatever in nearly 40 years. At the very least, they deserve an explanation from the Government, and the questions that we have asked today should be answered properly. Those in power really ought to know by now that the people of Merseyside do not rest until justice is done and the truth is uncovered.