---

Fuel Supply: Grangemouth Refinery

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for repeating the Statement. For many years I had the privilege of representing many of the people involved in this dispute. Indeed, at one time my former parliamentary constituency was the boundary wire of the petrochemicals complex at Grangemouth. It has to be recognised that this is only a 48-hour strike. It may well be only the first, although I hope it will be the last. I take the point that ACAS has an important role to play here. The significance of pension arrangements for people in the petrochemicals industry should not be underestimated. They have a tradition of being retired comparatively early and therefore pensions are of almost disproportionate significance. Men are normally laid off before they are 60 and they tend to be long-serving workers, so anxieties about pensions are often of considerable substance. This is not the kind of action that the men and women whom I know, and had the privilege of representing, take willy-nilly; it comes as a last resort. In some respects, this is different from the way they were treated by BP when it was their tough but, at times, paternalistic employer. Ineos represents a rather different breed, and there is a different response coming at this time. I would be cautious about this, because these people are fairly moderate workers. They are not patsies, they do not get taken for a ride and they do not like to be—as they would see it—abused in industrial relations. We can hope only that ACAS will be able to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible. They know the routes. It is just a question of getting both sides walking along the same way at the same time.