My Lords, when I spoke in Committee I made reference to the Minister behaving like Stonewall Jackson. I was concerned in making that analogy because I pointed out to the Committee that he was eventually shot by his own side. I was mightily relieved today that, when all the cannons were turned on the Minister, the Government made a number of sensible suggestions in the interests of her welfare.
As we come to this debate, we can relax a little and look at how industrial relations affect industry and employment in this country. I hope that we can spend a moment away from the adversarial side of industrial relations and look at the more positive aspects. It is not that I do not respect the need for collective bargaining but I see the benefits of employee participation and working with trade unions as important elements of our democracy. It is sad that in industry generally we have often relied far too much on overseas companies and foreign management to bring in new techniques for our managers and employees and benefit from. There are some notable examples, particularly John Lewis and Marks & Spencer, but I have to say that in these days when customer service, quality and value-added products and services are so important all these aspects of employment require direct employee engagement.
I am reminded of my own experience in the 1970s in a WEA class of shop stewards from the Morris Cowley plant who I had to teach the economics of the car industry. It was not an easy task at that time, particularly as they were cynically suspicious of me and I was warning them of the coming threat to them and their jobs from Japan, which had reached America
and was about to become very dominant in Europe. The Morris Marina was the car those employees made at the time and I remember using the words of Gerald Ratner to describe their product.
At that point, there was uproar in the class. The people who made the rear door panels and the electrics and those who worked in the paint shop came to an amazing defence of their product. I was quite astonished. They took real pride in their product and in what they did in that plant, despite its huge complexities and difficulties at that time. Throughout the rest of my career, I have always thought what an opportunity was missed by British management in the British motor industry at that time by failing to engage with its staff. It was only when we had the foreign management of Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota and Honda that we started to make real progress in those sectors.
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The lesson I learned from that is that it is a two-sided equation. Not only do you need modernised trade unions but you need very good management skills and stable industrial relations arrangements. You also need not only a commitment from unions on wages and benefits but a commitment to the companies that the employees work in. From that comes an interest in job opportunities, skills training, promotion and engagement.
This is a very important issue. This Government are failing on productivity, as did the last Government. They should take the excellent suggestion from the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, and engage in this matter. I was amazed when she mentioned that so many papers were published by the previous Government. I do not even remember them and certainly cannot remember reading any of them. That is a sadness and an indictment that we have not taken this issue seriously.
Therefore, I welcome this debate and I hope that the Government will take up the noble Baroness’s suggestion—if not by accepting the amendment then by their deeds and practices in the future.