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Industrial Action: Lindsey Oil Refinery

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is here with us again making another important Statement to this House. I declare my interests as set out in the register. I am also grateful to him for allowing me advance sight of his Statement and for his courtesy, although I have only just had the opportunity to see it. I agree with him that it is very important that two crucial canards have been exposed. First, it would be illegal to discriminate against British workers and we now have clear assurances from him that no such discrimination has taken place. Secondly, there is the allegation of undercutting, which, too, has been exposed as specious. In terms of intellectual substance, this should be the end of the matter, but these are straitened times and the issues are not that simple. The immediate problem has been created by what was by and large an extraordinarily ill-judged turn of phrase used by the Prime Minister in his first party conference speech as Labour leader in September 2007. As everyone in this country must know by now, he stated his intention to create, "““British jobs for British workers””." It is no good dancing on the head of a pin at this stage. This was deliberate, carefully calibrated mood music and everyone knew at once what the intention behind it was. My right honourable friend David Cameron, the Leader of the Opposition, pointed out six weeks later in the debate on the Queen’s Speech in the other place that this was patently, overtly and unmistakably a crassly populist attempt to fend off the rising challenge coming from the extreme right. My colleagues did some digging to discover the source of the Prime Minister’s slogans about British jobs for British people. As my leader pointed out in November 2007, "““if only the Prime Minister could see how embarrassed his Labour MPs are, how they shudder when he utters those words. He borrowed one slogan off the National Front and he borrowed another off the British National Party””.—[Official Report, Commons, 6/11/07; col. 22.]" Where was his moral compass when he was doing that? All I would say is, ““As ye sow, so shall ye reap””. The Prime Minister has had plenty of opportunity to disown his ugly turn of phrase, once it had been pointed out to him by friend and foe alike. All these weasel words from the Prime Minister and his colleagues now are as ineffective as they are demeaning. Once again, it is a case of too little, too late. But I want to help the Secretary of State if at all possible, so let us go back to first principles. Once again I endorse the fact that the core principle of the free movement of goods, services and labour is crucial both to international trade and our domestic well-being. Overall, everyone benefits from this freedom, and delivering the single market has been the supreme achievement of the European Union. As the Secretary of State has just said, we are a great trading nation, but it is very sad that we now have the biggest trade deficit in goods since 1674. Paradoxically, at a time of economic downturn, free movement is more important than ever, but as jobs vanish and industries contract, more immediate concerns can cloud people’s judgment and make protectionism seem like a comfortable line of least resistance. We cannot allow that specious argument to win by default. We owe it to our country to stick to our principles and restate the case for free markets with even greater vigour and patience than ever before. The Secretary of State does not need me to tell him that the economy is in a terrible state and that many people are understandably fearful about the future. When making the case for free and open markets and against protectionism, he will have to choose his language with great care and demonstrate a considerable degree of sensitivity. I know that Mr Humphrys at the BBC subjected him to a certain amount of antagonism and provocation this morning, as did his Cabinet colleague Alan Johnson with some naive and populist words over the weekend. However, while we cannot condone wildcat strikes and picketing of the kind we have been seeing, we do have to understand people’s fears. We must all choose our words with due care and attention. Although of course Alan Johnson did not condone wildcat strikes, it was surely inflammatory for him to speak in the terms he did. So I ask the Secretary of State whether he thinks that the Secretary of State for Health now accepts that what he said was wrong. Secondly, is what the Secretary of State just said to us the unanimous view not only of his department, but also of the Government? Thirdly, what steps are the Government going to take to enforce the law, given the words of the Secretary of State this afternoon? Next, how does all this fit with Warwick 2, an agreement that we have never seen but which we all understand was reached between the trade unions and the Labour Party prior to the last general election? Could we now see the terms of Warwick 2? Finally, as long as Ministers stand firm in defence of the rule of law and against any madcap rush to protectionism, we shall support them. There is no blank cheque, however, and we shall be paying close attention to everything the Secretary of State and his senior colleagues say and do in the days ahead. The sad fact is that if the Government do not wake up soon, the winter of discontent will turn into the spring of depression.