David Waddington Memoirs (12 page)

In January 1981 I was sitting in the Whips Office when Michael Jopling phoned from No. 10 and asked me to get round as soon as possible. When I got there he was standing outside the PM’s room
with his face wreathed in smiles. ‘I reckon I’ve done pretty well for the office. Three of you are to be promoted – Peter Morrison, John MacGregor and you; you because I have persuaded the PM that it is necessary to have a lawyer in the Department of Employment to look after trade union reform and they are losing their lawyer as a result of Paddy Mayhew going off to the Home Office. Leon Brittan whom he is replacing is to be Chief Secretary.’

Jim Prior had been Secretary of State for Employment since the general election and had been much criticised for his so-called softly softly approach to the trade unions. Reform of industrial relations law was urgently required but Jim had taken the view that there would be big trouble with the unions if reform came in other than small doses. The result had been a very tame first Trade Union Bill, which made some small inroads in to the closed shop and outlawed some more blatant types of secondary action i.e. industrial action against employers not directly involved in an industrial dispute.

None of this was to the liking of Margaret Thatcher and when I went to see her on my appointment she made it clear that she wanted a metaphorical bomb put under Jim. The horrors of the closed shop were much in the public eye at that time because of the case of the Sandwell dinner ladies who had been sacked by the Sandwell local authority for refusing to join a union; and the Prime Minister was determined to see that abuse of union power of this or, for that matter, any other sort was stopped.

Jim was a delight to work with and very well liked by his officials. They, however, seemed to think that the Department of Employment’s role was to see that the interests of the trade union movement were properly represented in government. That, to put it mildly, was not how the Prime Minister saw things, and I had come back into Parliament heartily fed up with the irresponsibility of the trade unions and their pretensions to be almost a partner in
government. In my view, the Conservative government was there to bring about radical reform in the field of industrial relations, to get rid of, not condone, abuse of power by the trade union barons and to look after the interests of ordinary working people.

Jim knew he had to prepare for the next step in trade union reform, but he was not inclined to say how big he thought that step should be and was in no great haste to make the next move. One thing in particular was absolutely clear. He had shut his mind entirely to the most obvious way forward which was to remove from trade unions the immunity from actions for damages for the wrongs of their servants or agents which they had won in 1911.

Peter Morrison and I had joined the DE on the same day and being the most junior of all the departmental ministers had to share a driver named Trevor; and I, like he, lived south of the river. That meant that Trevor called for me first in the morning, and then went on to collect Peter from Cambridge Street. Usually, however, Trevor was late, putting forward as an excuse the fact that the hamster had got out.

I was the minister responsible for health and safety, and one of my first tasks was to try and sort out a problem concerning an ICI site in western Scotland. There was a dock at which explosives were loaded and unloaded, and someone had woken up to the fact that the local authority had built an enormous sports complex, dance hall and recreation centre across the water from the dock. Surely, if there was a massive explosion on the dock at a time when the centre was full many lives would be lost. An expert on safety worked out what was called the societal risk, not the risk of one person being killed but the chances of a lot of people being killed, and he advised that the risk was unacceptable. A careful
measurement
had been made of the distance from the dock to the sports complex, a careful survey had been carried out of the quantities of explosives being handled and a meticulous note had been taken
of the number of people frequenting the local authority’s
establishment
at times when the dock was being used. After that, the whole lot were multiplied together and divided by the square root of the town clerk, and the answer was that something had to be done. Up to Scotland I went and talked over the problem with the local authority, then with ICI and then with the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) experts, but no reasonable solution to the
problem
could be found. But a solution was found. The man who had measured the distance from the dock to the sports hall was asked to get out his measure again and have another go. Off he went and soon returned triumphant. The sports hall was 200 yards further away than he had originally thought and the experts, having made another of their elaborate calculations, delivered their verdict: ‘On the new evidence now available there is no need to do anything’. Business could continue as usual; and I could return to London to claim that another knotty problem had been resolved.

In September 1981 there came a major reshuffle. In the summer Mark Carlisle had told me that he felt his job was at risk. I was sad for him but it was difficult not to smile at the story he told to justify his pessimism. ‘I was asked to go to No. 10 for breakfast,’ he said. ‘When I got there the PM told me that Keith Joseph would be joining us shortly. I did not like the sound of that because I knew Keith wanted my job. But worse was to follow. I sat at the table where there was a nice bowl of strawberries and was about to tuck in when the PM shouted: ‘No, Mark! Those are for Keith. There are prunes for you on the sideboard.’ ‘I knew then,’ said Mark, ‘that the game was up.’

In another important change in the reshuffle Jim Prior was moved to Northern Ireland, and Norman Tebbit descended on the DE in fighting form. He gave instructions that a special alarm system should be placed in his office because some demonstrators had in the last weeks of Jim’s reign managed to get past the security
at the front doors and all the way up to the ministerial floor. A few days passed and Norman realised that, in spite of his orders, nothing had been done. He summoned the man responsible who had the temerity to say that he had decided that the matter of the alarm was not a top priority. Norman’s rage not only terrified the delinquent official, who left shaking like a leaf, but the message that the new Secretary of State was not a man to be trifled with spread through the department like wildfire.

Norman’s time at the DE showed how one man with
determination
can change the ethos of a whole organisation. What he did in a remarkably short space of time was change the DE from being the apologist of the trade union movement to being its scourge. His mischievous humour at first horrified officials; his blistering attacks on the TUC, the union leaders and all those concerned to look after the one-legged, black lesbian rather than Mr and Mrs Ordinary English caused consternation. But in time officials began to enter in to the spirit of things and even share in a bit of the mischief. We began to work up a really radical new Employment Bill and told the parliamentary draughtsmen that it was going to be called The Extension of the Rights of Employees Bill to emphasise how the rights of ordinary people which had been invaded by the trade unions were now to be restored to them. Devising such a controversial title was quite a good ploy because Whitehall spent so much time thinking of arguments against the proposed name of the Bill they had little energy left to attack the substance. And plenty of substance we were determined there should be, principally the virtual abolition of the closed shop and the removal of nearly all the legal immunities the trade unions had attracted over the years.

Norman and I both quoted with relish the report of the 1903 Royal Commission set up after the Taff Vale judgment. For, with Sidney Webb one of its members, it had strongly urged that trade unions should be liable like everyone else for wrongful acts.

This fundamental principle was first accepted and then rejected by the Liberal government of 1906. It was high time, in spite of the extension of the immunities by Labour governments in 1965 and 1976, that the principle was reaffirmed.

We were introducing the Bill at just the right time. Unemployment and industrial change had reduced the
membership
of and weakened the trade unions. The public were fed up with their behaviour and there was no way the Labour Opposition could make the status quo look respectable.

One cause célèbre about this time caused me much
embarrassment
and Norman much mirth. For years an absurd body created by the DE had been used to help enforce the work permit system. It was called VOCA which I think stood for the Vocal and Orchestral Concert Association. Before I arrived at the DE I had imagined that the work permit system was there to help enforce immigration control and to prevent foreigners coming in to the country and pinching British people’s jobs. Not on your life. The DE considered that the work permit system was there to protect vested interests from competition and, in this instance, to ensure that British people were not able to listen to foreign orchestras.

I was told that VOCA had for long ruled that foreign orchestras should not be allowed to give more than five concerts on a visit and I was therefore advised that the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, which had contracted to give seven performances, was out of order. The necessary work permits could not be issued. I was told that if the permits were issued lasting damage might be
done to the BBC Symphony Orchestra and indeed music in Britain would die, and the country would become a cultural desert. In short, civilisation as we knew it would come to an end and
posterity
would hold the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Employment entirely responsible. Could I really take such a burden on my inadequate shoulders? Clearly not. The work permit applications must be refused.

But I had not reckoned with Mr Jasper Parrot (not Carrot), an impresario who was, I suppose, the agent for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and responsible for arranging the tour. Neither had I reckoned with Mr Parrot’s energetic and persistent MP, Sir Brandon Rhys-Williams.

Brandon and J. Parrot came to see me. I listened patiently but, sticking to my departmental brief, refused to budge. Brandon promptly applied for an adjournment debate and I still refused to budge; and afterwards he and Parrot accosted me in the Central Lobby and complained bitterly about my intransigence.

They demanded to see Norman Tebbit who, having other things on his mind, told them to jump out of the window, or words to that effect. It was not the reply they had expected, and that very evening Brandon, still suffering from the lash of Norman’s tongue, went up to the Prime Minister in the division lobby and in loud and querulous tones complained about (a) the decision and (b) the way he had been treated by Norman. Looked at from Brandon’s point of view there was good news and there was bad news. The bad news was that a whip quickly reported to Norman that Brandon had been sneaking to the PM at which Norman strode across to Brandon, picked him up by the back of his jacket and shook him with some vigour. The good news for Brandon was that his remarks made a great impression on the Prime Minister – so great indeed that the next day she phoned Norman, gave him an enormous rocket and told him that his civil servants and his under-secretary
must have been quite mad to refuse the work permits and the decision had to be reversed forthwith. Norman, hooting with laughter, told his private secretary that his mistress’s orders had to be obeyed, but he did not utter a word of complaint to me, or about me to anyone else.

He deserved a present. I bought a large stuffed parrot and
numerous
coloured hat pins which I proceeded to stick in the bird. I then presented it to Norman who suspended it on a piece of string above his desk where it remained for many months to come. Visitors, high and low, always asked him to explain the parrot which he did with great gusto and in terms which would not have amused its namesake. To this day I do not know whether the pins worked.

On a Friday towards the end of 1981 there was a debate on
unemployment
on an Opposition motion. Many thought I was crazy to volunteer to reply on behalf of the government, and the Opposition was very cross having expected the government to put up someone from either the Treasury or the Department of Industry. But I did myself a good turn. My speech went down very well and earned me a nice compliment from Jack Weatherill who was in the chair. I wound up in the debate on the second reading of the Employment Bill which contained the Tebbit proposals for reform of trade union law, including the virtual abolition of the closed shop. I was
flattered
when Cross-Bencher of the
Sunday Express
wrote, ‘Many Tory MPs rate it one of the most aggressive and intelligent winding up speeches in years’. A friend quipped, ‘If you don’t look out you’re going to get yourself promoted and then you’ll be in a real mess.’

At Christmas 1981 I noticed that Norman was about to go home with not one but two dispatch boxes. I commiserated with him for having so much work to do over the holiday. He looked rather sheepish and opened up the boxes one of which contained a melon and the other smoked salmon.

At about this time I was asked to take part, with Angus Ogilvy
and one or two other nobs, in a rather swell event in the City of London. Young people had been invited to show their skill in arts and crafts; and their achievements were laid out for inspection in the Mansion House. This is a cautionary tale and explains why MPs and ministers get pretty angry when told by the press that they are living it rich while poor journalists have to sustain themselves on little but baked beans and beer. We all looked at the entrants and what they had produced, and we dished out the awards. Then it was our turn, and we stepped forward to receive a little thank you for our efforts. Angus Ogilvy was presented with a pretty little silver dish, the next in line a rather fine painting, the third some brass candlesticks. I had not come expecting anything, but I cannot deny that by now my appetite was whetted. I was full of
expectations
but far too well brought up to show disappointment when I was handed a well-turned bread board.