Industrial Action Update

Debate between Lord Maude of Horsham and Robert Jenrick

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

It simply is not the case that public sector workers have suffered more than private sector workers. I shall repeat this at dictation speed: public sector pay has risen in the past five years—the period since the great recession—by more than pay in the private sector has risen.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking the teachers and staff in my constituency, many of whom are union members, who have ensured that all but two schools there have remained open today? One of the two that have closed is a special school, and the parents have found it incredibly difficult to make alternative child care arrangements. How can it possibly be right for those parents to suffer what they have suffered today on the basis of a ballot taken two years ago that provided such a small mandate?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend makes a really powerful point. I join him in supporting and thanking all those people, including governors and other volunteers, who have rallied round to ensure that, wherever possible, schools could be kept open. That is very much to their credit. The strikes have been called on the basis of increasingly thin mandates, and people’s determination to keep public services open and available has increased. It is particularly wrong that a special school of the type that my hon. Friend describes should have been closed in that way.