Employment Bill [Lords]

I am pleased to express my support for the new clauses. If there is a Division I shall support new clause 2, and I hope the Government will take account of our discussions on new clauses 1 and 3 and will look to make changes to the provisions. As Friction Dynamex has been referred to, I shall speak briefly about that company. I am the MP for Caernarfon where it was located, and I represent the bulk of workers. The other workers are represented by the hon. Members for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and for Conwy (Mrs. Williams), and I hope they will be able to make their views clear if there is a Division. I shall not rehearse the events at Friction Dynamex in detail, except to say that the workers did win their case at the industrial tribunal in the face of provocations and manipulations, and evasions and underhand and infamous tactics on the part of the employer. They and the union concerned were very careful to follow the rules and the law. They acted properly, and they remained united with the support of the local community. They won their case at the industrial tribunal because, fortuitously, my predecessor, Dafydd Wigley, kept recorded contemporaneous accounts of a telephone conversation with the employer, which revealed his real intentions, which were to provoke a strike, sack the workers, strip the assets from the company and make away with large sums of money. That is what happened at Friction Dynamex, and the aftermath is that Friction Dynamex has closed, the factory is derelict, the workers have been dispersed and have received no compensation, and the employer has now set up in another town and, from all accounts, is up to his old tricks again. These new clauses seem to me to be eminently reasonable in their intention. They would have led to this case not having to come before an industrial tribunal and to the avoidance of years of struggle, stress, loss of earnings and loss of compensation, which my constituents, and those of other Members, faced in this long drawn-out industrial dispute. Had these provisions been in place, there would also have been a disincentive to bad employers to set up in the first place, setting in train the sort of wicked plans the employer at Friction Dynamex followed. I hope the Government take notice of this debate and look carefully at changing the provisions so that good employment practices can drive out the bad. That is no small prize.