Trade Union Funding

Debate between Albert Owen and Frank Doran

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Doran]

My hon. Friend speaks with a lot of experience. He has worked with local authorities across Scotland, and I bow to his knowledge. It is easy to count the cost of wages. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who has an axe to grind, has all the resources to get the figures together; but there is no assessment of the benefit to management. That is the fundamental weakness in the case.

The pendulum is swinging. I have described how we approached industrial relations, and the figures for time lost at work through strike action in the past 15 years show a dramatic improvement, but that graph is likely to change substantially. I am deeply concerned about the approach of any Government who think that the only way to resolve problems in the workplace is to reduce workers’ rights and remove their health and safety rights. That is a particular issue for me. I was a very young Member of Parliament when the Piper Alpha disaster happened. It was a time of light regulation in the offshore oil industry, because the imperative was to get the oil ashore and recover the taxes that it paid the Exchequer. One hundred and sixty-seven men were killed, and I have spent a lot of my political life still in contact with the relatives and survivors. It is not something I want repeated. I have a simple rule: one man’s red tape is another man’s essential safety system.

The Conservative party was not always the way it is now. A week or so ago I read an obituary of Robert Carr, who died recently. Lord Carr had the onerous responsibility of taking the Industrial Relations Act 1971 through Parliament. That was flawed, and he made it clear later in life that much of it was not easily understood; I think that was how he put it. He had practical experience of manufacturing industry. His family had owned a metal works, which apparently provided metal for the airframes for, I think, the Wellington bomber, during the war. It was a quite substantial company. After his spell as Secretary of State he said that because of his time on the shop floor in his fathers’ factory he understood the importance of trade unions. That breed of Tory—people with practical experience of the workplace—seems to have gone. He understood the importance of trade union rights and was genuinely liberal about them.

There are more important issues involved. The way we deal with the workplace is extremely important. As I have said, we have virtually lost our manufacturing base. We have the car industry and a few other significant areas, but perhaps we should look at what happens in other countries—particularly Germany. After the war Germany recognised the importance of good relations between the work force and management. It established a system that German trade unions tell me is almost as revered as the NHS. The key thing is that the work force has a voice at every level.

I lost my seat in 1992 and at that time—another confession for the hon. Member for Congleton—I worked for the trade union movement. I was responsible for organising some conferences for what is now a part of Unite, but was then the Transport and General Workers Union. One conference was about the automotive industry, and I had the task of asking the head of BMW in the UK to speak at the conference. I had a meeting with him and he asked me what I wanted him to say—an unusual situation for me; usually it is a case of being told what someone wants to say. I just said, “Be union-friendly.” He said, “I can be very union-friendly. I strongly believe that no major company can now operate without the strong support of its work force and trade unions.” He was a member of the main board of BMW in Germany at the time.

That philosophy seems totally alien in our political system. The debates on trade unions that we have had in this House—the last one was on a ten-minute rule Bill on facilities for trade union members—are marked by two things: ignorance and anger. There is polarisation on both sides. That is bad for us, politics and the country.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Before I call Robert Halfon, I want to make an announcement on time limits. Because of the number of hon. Members who want to speak, including those who have given advance notice, I am, with the authority of the Chairman of Ways and Means, imposing a time limit of four minutes on Back-Bench speeches. The rules are exactly as in the House. Each of the first two interventions accepted will stop the clock and give the hon. Member who gives way an extra minute. We do not, as the Chamber does, have the mechanisms that enable hon. Members to know the time on the clock, so with the assistance of the Clerk we will ring the bell when there is a minute to go. An intervention made in the last minute entitles an hon. Member to added time.

Fisheries

Debate between Albert Owen and Frank Doran

Thursday 2nd December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. Can we get back to the matter of fishing?

[Mr Doran]

I welcome the Minister’s remarks and was not targeting him specifically—