Trade Union Bill

Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I should emphasise that point: we are saving £17 million a year because of the transparency we have introduced into the civil service. It will no doubt have a similar impact on the rest of the public sector.

There are nurses, teachers and other public servants being paid a salary by the taxpayer while working for their union under the banner of facility time. There is no transparency around how much time they spend on union work and no controls in place to ensure that the taxpayer is getting value for money. It is a situation that most ordinary Britons, including many dedicated public servants I have spoken to, find absolutely baffling. That is why civil service Departments are already required to publish information about the use of facility time by their staff. The Bill allows the Government to make regulations extending that to all public sector employers. It will include information about an employer’s spending on trade union duties and activities and about how many of its union representatives spend a specified percentage of their time on their union role. We have already made considerable savings for the taxpayer by requiring Departments to publish this information, as we have just heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (James Heappey). However, if transparency alone does not lead to further savings, the Bill also grants Ministers the power to set a cap on the time and money spent on facility time.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State agree with one of his own donors, JCB, which has people in facility full-time to encourage positive industrial relations? If it is good enough for the private sector, surely it is good enough for our public sector.

[Sajid Javid]

It is good enough for all sectors. There is nothing wrong with facility time—the Bill is clear about that—but it should be open and transparent, and the current rules do not ensure that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

I direct the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a proud member of the GMB and Unite trade unions and a board director of HOPE not hate. As a former trade union officer and a proud trade union MP, I am disgusted that the Government are prepared to undermine a vital component of British public life for the sake of narrow political self-interest. Let us be in no doubt that that is precisely what we are seeing here today. The Bill is not a measured approach to industrial relations; it is a vicious and unprovoked assault on the labour movement. What problem are the Secretary of State and the Prime Minster trying to fix? Have I missed a tsunami of strikes or an outbreak of trade union militancy? The answer is no.

As many of my colleagues have touched on the specific impact on industrial relations, I wish to talk about some of the wider ramifications of this legislation, in particular its impact on an issue that is close to my own heart—the vital work of challenging political extremism in British society and the role that the trade union movement has played, and continues to play, in that. It is pertinent to raise that issue now, because today marks Rosh Hashanah, when the Jewish community celebrates our new year. But for many Jews, this year’s festivities are tinged with trepidation. A recent survey showed that six out of 10 are afraid to visit a synagogue on high holy days, for fear of violence and abuse.

Those fears are not unfounded. In the latest hate crime figures released by the Metropolitan police, the number of such offences against Jews in London had increased by 93% in the last 12 months, a trend confirmed by the statistics from the Community Security Trust. Those awful figures were mirrored by increases in hate crime across society, not least in the Muslim community which saw a 70% spike.

[Wes Streeting]

As someone who has campaigned with organisations such as HOPE not hate, is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that the Bill will damage funding for those organisations and their vital anti-racist, anti-fascist activity?

[Ruth Smeeth]

I agree. There are few organisations that challenge the political fallout of those hates and fears, and I had the privilege of working for the best one—HOPE not hate. I am sure that both sides of the House would agree that the politics of hate and fear have no place in this House. But, if it were not for the work of my colleagues we may well have seen a neo-fascist British National party MP in 2010. We built broad community campaigns in areas as diverse as Barking and Dagenham, Burnley, Keighley and my city, Stoke-on-Trent, to oppose the politics of hate and celebrate the politics of hope—and we won. But the reality is that we would not have won without the financial and organisational support of the trade union movement.

Since long before the battle of Cable Street, trade unions in this country have played a part in supporting community cohesion alongside their traditional role as workplace advocates. In recent years, they have put their money, time and people on the front line to challenge extremists. It was the trade union movement that led the campaign to unseat Nick Griffin from the European Parliament. It was trade unionists who stood up to the English Defence League in Tower Hamlets and it was trade unionists who worked with faith leaders in Woolwich when Fusilier Lee Rigby was brutally murdered.

Under this legislation, all of that work is under threat. That is compounded by the horrendous gagging Act, and the resultant chill factor is unacceptable. Clause 10 would place severe restrictions on trade unions’ ability to raise and maintain their political funds, because every restriction placed on trade union support for the Labour party applies equally to the wider community campaigns that the movement undertakes.

As I have said, today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, and while I wish the House “L’shana tova”, I hope that the Secretary of State will take the opportunity of a clean start at the beginning of the year to think again and stop this abhorrent and unnecessary attack on the trade union and labour movements.