International Women’s Day
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords—or, on this day of all days, I am going to say “Sisters”—I too am really looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. I hope that she does not hold back.
I will take the few minutes I have to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1984 miners’ strike, to pay tribute to Women Against Pit Closures, and maybe to draw some lessons for the future. I declare an interest: I am the former general secretary of the TUC, and I am the sister of a former striking miner. My sister-in-law—a new mother at time—was one of the tens of thousands of women who showed great resilience in the face of real hardship. Needless to say, I am very proud of both my brother and her.
The miners’ strike had a big impact on my generation. Women Against Pit Closures, including Betty Heathfield, Anne Harper, Ann Lilburn and Sian James, showed us that, vital though that work was, the contribution of women was about much more than running soup kitchens. Working class women were leaders too, and they forged new alliances, including with LGBT+ and anti-racist campaigns, and won support from artists from George Michael to the Pogues.
Since the strike, women have also been critical to many truth and justice campaigns, not least the campaign about what really happened at Orgreave. It is shameful that there has been no public inquiry into the brutal police operation there, and into who ultimately gave the orders. The time-honoured principle of equality before the law must be upheld, but it is a mirage if access to the law is denied, or if ordinary people are priced out of justice. That goes for employment tribunal fees too. The last time employment tribunal fees were introduced, the number of claims plummeted by 78%; claims on race discrimination and LGBT+ discrimination were down by 60%; and equal pay and sex discrimination cases dropped by over 80%. Will the Minister agree that employment tribunal fees are bad for women and bad for workplace justice?
Looking ahead, the British economy faces big challenges that will impact on women’s employment, including the drive to cut carbon and the rapid spread of AI. My own view is that AI has the potential to be a liberating force, offering more satisfying work and higher living standards, but only if change is regulated, negotiated and managed, and if the benefits are shared fairly. The risk of disruption and job loss is significant. According to the ONS, seven in 10 of the jobs most at risk to AI are held by women.
This week, the Coalfields Regeneration Trust published a report that shows that the wounds of the Government’s pit closure programmes still run deep. Ex-mining areas have fewer jobs compared with the rest of the UK, and those jobs they have are lower paid and more likely to be zero hours. This time, it must be different. We urgently need a new, practical industrial strategy, investment and a social plan, to support firms, livelihoods and communities through change. The goal must be a just transition to a greener and higher-productivity economy, with good jobs and skills for men and women at its heart.
Finally, the trade union movement today compared with when I was a young rep has been transformed. Membership is now 50:50 men and women, Britain’s biggest unions are now led by women and the majority of those who took strike action over the last couple of years and who led negotiations for a fair resolution were women. That boost to women’s representation sadly does not mean that the trade union movement is now a feminist paradise—any more than the boardroom is, or indeed Parliament.
However, sharing representation and power more equally means that bad behaviours, including sexism and sexual harassment, are more likely to be exposed and tackled. Women and men, black and white, young and old, share a common interest. We all want an economy that delivers secure jobs that pay enough to raise a family, enough time to spend with loved ones, and freedom from all forms of discrimination, just as Women Against Pit Closures fought for the right for women, alongside men, to have a strong voice—a strong union voice—at work and in society.
King’s Speech
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interests in respect of the Bank of England court and as former leader of the TUC.
In a world of accelerating shocks, building UK resilience is vital, but after 13 years of Conservative administration, the economy is in a mess. The latest figures show stagnating investment, low productivity and zero growth. Families are still struggling with energy bills and falling behind on mortgage repayments and the rent, and I hope everybody in this House will agree that homelessness is not a “lifestyle choice”. Yet the King’s Speech offered no serious analysis of the challenges we face and no serious remedies, so the forthcoming Autumn Statement is the Government’s last chance saloon.
Many would agree that we need measures to boost productivity, and that technologies such as AI offer big opportunities to do that, but I have a word of warning. As the OECD has pointed out, higher productivity is no longer any guarantee of higher wages. That link has been broken, so we also need new policies designed to ensure that productivity gains are shared more fairly. The Bletchley Park summit was a missed opportunity—for sure, eyebrows were raised when the Prime Minister announced the Elon Musk interview on social media, with an image of the door of No. 10 morphing into the corporate logo of X; after viewing that so-called interview, I think it is safe to conclude that Rishi Sunak is no Jeremy Paxman.
The summit red carpet was rolled out for big tech moguls and Governments, including those of China and Saudi Arabia, so there was certainly expertise in the room on AI and mass surveillance, but workers’ expertise was not invited. There was no seat at the table for the TUC, despite trade unions representing millions of workers in the UK and around the world. Instead, the Government have lined up behind big tech lobbyists against strong regulation of AI. We are asked to believe that the industry will voluntarily do the right thing, but have Ministers learned nothing from the bankers’ crash? As Larry Elliott observed:
“There is, once again, a danger that the pursuit of profit comes before the public good. As in 2008, that way lies disaster”.
Government must also face up to the urgent challenge of industrial disruption and the risk that AI will exacerbate both regional and class inequalities. New jobs will be created, for sure, but many jobs will change and some will go. To smooth the transition, the country needs much stronger social protection and much more ambitious investment in skills and training. Competition policy must be tougher to prevent tech megacompanies exploiting their market power, and workers need support to secure a fair share of those productivity gains. That must include new rights to technology agreements, a human review of AI decisions and the right to disconnect. And, not least at Amazon, where low-paid workers are in the midst of strike action, workers need stronger rights to organise and to win union recognition.
I have a final word to the wise. In a country crying out for change, pre-election tax cuts for the wealthy and a bankers’ bonuses free-for-all will not cut it. Instead, we need a serious plan to rebuild the UK’s economic resilience; investment in a green industrial strategy to grow good jobs; and a little less deference and a lot more determination to hold tech giants to account for the common good.
UK Economy: Growth, Inflation and Productivity
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register.
I have three questions for the Minister. First, why does the UK have the highest inflation in the G7? Ministers cannot explain that away with the war in Ukraine and Covid recovery; many other countries face exactly the same challenges but Britain has been much more exposed to high costs of imported energy, and there are domestic policy failings that help to explain it. Secondly, why is investment and growth in the UK so low and our balance of trade so poor? Thirdly, why are real wages still no better than they were before the financial crisis? According to the ILO, only Italy, Japan, Mexico and the UK have real pay below 2008 levels.
The UK economy is not working for working people. From austerity cuts to public services that left us so poorly prepared for the pandemic to Liz Truss’s mini-Budget that caused maximum damage, the Government, as my noble friend Lord Eatwell said, keep making the wrong policy choices. At the start of the pandemic, when the TUC proposed a furlough scheme, the then Chancellor grabbed the idea, but when the TUC then called for a national recovery council, involving business and unions as well as Ministers, to plan and prepare for reconstruction after the pandemic, the same Minister said no. Many had hoped that the Government would build on people’s sacrifice and solidarity throughout Covid to create a stronger society and a fairer economy—surely we could not go back to business as usual. However, it now seems that the Government have given up on growth, on an industrial strategy and on the aspirations of the working people of Britain.
We have an economy that rewards wealth, not work. Of the 15 million people in the UK in poverty, more than half have a job. In contrast, TUC analysis shows that since the global financial crisis financial wealth has more than doubled and shareholder payouts are rising three times faster than nominal pay. Think about what that inequality means for demand in an economy that is now dominated by the service sector. Working families cannot afford to spend on the high street and the growing ranks of the super-rich do not. As economist Matthew Klein put it:
“You can only throw so many million-dollar birthday parties”.
Our economy does well only when working people do well. Without demand, we cannot grow our economy. Without growth, we cannot repair our public services. Without investment in health, skills and education, productivity suffers. We have to break this doom loop. It is high time that we had a plan for economic security and sustainable growth. AI alone offers the potential of multibillion-pound productivity benefits that if shared fairly—I recognise it is a big if—could turbocharge our economy. An ambitious green industrial strategy with a practical job transition plan would cut carbon and help the parts of the country that need it most.
We desperately need investment in apprenticeships, skills, affordable homes and public services. Instead of making it harder for workers to defend themselves against real pay cuts by attacking their trade unions, let us have a plan to get living standards rising again. Let us be honest about the economic price of a hard Brexit. We need to roll up our sleeves and improve the trade deal that matters most to our economy, the one with our nearest and most important trading partner, the EU. Britain has many strengths that can lift us up the G7 league, not least the ingenuity and talent of our workforce. There is hope in the future, but we need a Government that will make the right policy choices and put the people of this country first.