PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
Campaign for the thirty-seven Cammell Laird workers imprisoned in 1984 (18 April 2021)

That this House warmly welcomes the victory of the Shrewsbury Twenty Four campaign in its decades long quest for justice; recognises that there are hundreds of other trade unionists and protestors who have been the victims of unjust and politically motivated punishments, including thirty-seven workers imprisoned in the Category A prison HMP Walton for their participation in the occupation of the Cammell Laird shipyards in 1984; understands that those imprisoned workers endured immense suffering and economic hardship as a result of their month-long detention and the blacklisting and loss of redundancy and pension rights that followed that imprisonment; condemns that gross miscarriage of justice and regrets that many of those who were so imprisoned have tragically not lived to see their names cleared; applauds the surviving members of that thirty-seven for their unwavering commitment to seeing that wrong righted and the GMB Union for its support of those members; notes that the Government has failed to honour its commitment to exploring the merits of holding a public inquiry into that historic injustice; further notes that in 2014, the European Parliament’s Commission on Petitions stated its belief that the authorities’ response to that dispute was an overreaction and that an apology should be considered; and calls on the Government to launch an inquiry and put into the public domain any and all documentation, including cabinet papers, from that period that may shed fresh light on those events.

Sponsored by:
Mick Whitley (Labour)