Draft Trade Union Act 2016 (Political Funds) (Transition Period) Regulations 2017

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 General Committees

[Christian Matheson]

I am going to have to make this simple. I pay a monthly membership subscription. I give money to the trade unions. That is what this is all about—membership money. The hon. Gentleman asks how much we get from them, but I do not get anything from them. I pay them money. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to ask that question. He is asking from a position of ignorance because he simply does not understand how trade unions work.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The intervention shows what lies behind this anti-democratic measure. In the mind of the Tories, this is the way the Labour party is funded and the way our democracy operates, and they want a one-party state. Through the resources available to them, they want to dominate the political process in this country. They cannot abide the fact that working people fund a political party to put working-class people’s representatives in the biggest debating chambers in this country. That is what they cannot abide and that is what is behind this legislation.

[Christian Matheson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. My great-grandfather—my maternal grandmother’s father—worked on Liverpool docks. He was killed when my grandmother was five years old. Trade unions came into existence initially to improve local terms and conditions in individual workplaces, but it soon became obvious that improving local terms and conditions would not solve the national problems. Individual workers therefore grouped together to try to get national representation to change the law in favour of individual working people. My hon. Friend is right—there is a history to this. Sadly, there is also a history to what the Government are doing now. As I mentioned in my intervention—

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[Clive Efford]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Stringer.

The question behind this is the one that the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham asked us Labour Members about the political levy, “What is it worth?” The truth is, if we think of the contribution that trade unions have made to this country as social reformers, going back to the early days when workers were seeking not just decent conditions and decent pay but the right to a job, it is priceless. They realised then that they needed to pay a political levy to put political representatives in the most powerful debating chambers in the country so that their voices could be heard. The consequence was huge social reform on pay and conditions, health and education, and the creation of the Labour party. The political levy funded workers’ representation through the Labour party here in Parliament, and the Tories cannot bear it and have always chipped away at it.

Imagine a Labour Government having proposed regulation for businesses such that they had to consult their shareholders in the way trade unions are now being required to go through all this bureaucracy. I wonder whether the Conservative party writes every year to everyone who has a standing order explaining how they can stop it. I suspect not.

The explanatory notes to the measure say that its aim is a collaborative approach to resolving industrial disputes. That is typical of how the Government adopt the language of the workers, trade unions and the labour movement: their national living wage is nothing of the sort; they talk about being a party of the worker; they even suggested they favoured putting workers on boards, but I will not hold my breath for that. They adopt the language, but they do not will the means. This measure is a typical example of an attempt to weaken trade union representation of hard-working people who need protection.

I would love to see enthusiasm from Conservative Members for regulation to deal with zero hours contracts, but we do not see it. We do not see this sort of interference in regulation of businesses—far from it—but we do hear, “Deregulation, deregulation.” When it comes to democratic trade unions that are responsible and accountable to their members, and democratic representation voted on by their members, the Conservative party wants to regulate, regulate and bind them down under a plethora of bureaucracy. It is not good enough. The regulations weaken workers’ representation and are ill conceived. The Conservative party will rue the day when it undermined free and democratic trade unions; they are an essential part of a mature democracy, which the Conservatives are chipping away at constantly. The changes are rushed and unacceptable, and I am determined to vote against this statutory instrument.