Business of the House

David Winnick Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We are trying to get a fairer balance between the public sector employees and the taxpayer, who pays a very large percentage of the pension contributions. My hon. Friend raises a good point. I detect public sympathy ebbing away from those who are planning to strike and they would do well to reflect on that before they go ahead with their action on Wednesday.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Would it not be useful to have a debate in the very near future on the obsessive hatred—there is no other way to describe it—that the Tory party has and always has had for the trade union movement? Trade unionists need no lectures about public service and patriotism from the Conservative party.

[Sir George Young]

That is a travesty of my party’s view about trade unions. I was a member of a trade union until I was expelled and described as a “pin-striped bovver boy” by ASTMS, the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs, back in the 1970s. The trade unions have a legitimate role to play in this country but we think that the very strong links between the trade unions and one political party are unhealthy for that party.