Schools White Paper

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

I want to pick up on what the hon. Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) has said. All Members, from all parts of the House, strive to make sure that every school is a good school, and that children are taught by great teachers. Academisation of schools does not, in itself, achieve that. It is important that we make that clear and that we do not pretend otherwise.

I would like to send my condolences to the family of John Cope, a former regional secretary of the GMB, who passed away yesterday. John fought long and hard for teachers all across north London, fighting to ensure that all schools were good ones, and those schools always welcomed John to their school. This might be wide of the mark—I could be completely wrong—but as I read and tried to make sense of the White Paper, I thought that part of this policy might be about stopping trade unions supporting their members. Now, more than at any other time, the one thing that will keep people —whether they work as a teacher, a cleaner, a dinner lady or a teaching assistant—connected and united in an educational establishment is the trade union movement. Rest in peace, John. The fight continues.

In Brent Central, we have five academies. Of all our other schools, only one is rated inadequate. The schools that became academies under Labour were failing schools that became academies in order to turn themselves around, which has indeed worked. That was a process for schools, rather than something that was forced on them. That point will be made throughout this debate.

In 2015, a parent contacted me in complete distress, saying, “They are forcing us to turn into an academy.” She asked me to go to a meeting, and I said, “Yes, not a problem.” I was quite surprised at how distressed all the parents and teachers were at the meeting. I was careful to obtain all the facts before forming an opinion, because that is what we do. I was told that, despite the objections of the unions and the parents, no proper information had been given to them. The parents wanted to have a ballot—a secret one, even—and they were willing to pay for it, but the school would not allow that to happen. Strikes and marches by the parents followed, and the kids were distressed, because the school was forced to turn into an academy. I worry that that will follow when other schools are forced to turn into academies.

Councillor Melinda Tilley, the cabinet member for education on Oxfordshire County Council, said on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme last month:

“It means a lot of little primary schools will be forced to go into multi-academy trusts and I just feel it’s the wrong time, in the wrong place. I’m fed up with diktats from above saying you will do this and you won’t do that. This is not why I became a Conservative. It makes my blood boil. I’m put in a position where I can’t protect schools. One size does not fit all. I think they’ve gone bonkers.”

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making some very good points about small rural schools. I do not believe that the Secretary of State addressed those points when she was questioned by MPs from her own side of the House. I have schools in my constituency with as few as 13 pupils. What kind of academy trust will want to take on a school that small?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dawn Butler]

That is a good point, and my hon. Friend makes it very well. The chief executive of England’s largest multi-academy trust, AET, has admitted that there is less autonomy for schools in academy trusts than there is for schools that are maintained by local authorities. He has even said that schools will not be able to opt out if the ethos does not fit that of the school. That is a problem.

The Secretary of State talks about money going into schools. It is a fact that there has been a cut in the amount of money going into schools. Actually, with the loss of the contextual value added funding, many schools have lost up to £800 per pupil, and the pupil premium has done nothing to bring that money back into the school system. It is absolutely outrageous.

I have been trying to find out what the proposal is really about. It is certainly not about ensuring that all schools are good schools and that we have good education for kids in Brent. Local authorities will pick up the legal cost of doing this. I do not know what the cost will be, because we are apparently wrong. We had it as £1.3 billion, but the Secretary of State says something different. It would be nice to know definitively what the figure will be.

What I can say is that we will lose £260 million in London schools alone. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who is the Labour candidate for London Mayor, has not only said that he will work

“with councils to challenge coasting or poor-performing schools”,

but that it is

“a scandal that more than 44,000 children in London are taught in classes of more than 30—with some taught in classes of more than 40.”

He says:

“I’ll play a city-wide strategic leadership role, seeking to make a big dent in the school places crisis.”

I urge the Government to stop and listen to the teachers who are staying in the profession, as well as to those who are leaving it, and just do a U-turn on this flawed White Paper.

Trade Union Bill

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

The problem with that analysis is that it is based on ignorance. The simple fact is that if a ballot has a low turnout, a trade union has to make a calculation. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson), who is a former Unison president, can confirm that trade unions have, on occasion, not proceeded to industrial action if they do not have support for it. The biggest gamble that a trade union takes when it decides to take industrial action is how many people participate. If people do not participate, the industrial action falls and dies.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

The contribution from the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden) highlights the lack of understanding of the role of trade unions and of people who are working just to pay their bills. That lack of understanding shows why this Bill is so wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

Despite that, my hon. Friends on the Committee did a remarkable job, under severe time constraints, and I want to pay tribute to them. I am sure that other hon. Friends on the Committee will forgive me if I especially praise my Cardiff neighbours, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who meticulously picked apart the Bill from the Front Bench, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens), who, despite her status as a new Member, brought her tremendous expertise and experience to bear in exposing the Bill for what it really is—an attack on the ability of trade unions to perform their proper role on behalf of their members, coupled with a grubby attempt to use a mandate acquired from 38% of those who voted in the general election in order to interfere with the funding of the main Opposition party. Their Cardiff constituents will be proud of my hon. Friends’ efforts to oppose this pernicious Bill. I only hope that I can add a little to their enormous efforts on behalf of working people and democracy.

[Dawn Butler]

This oppressive Bill will particularly affect women, as three quarters of trade union members are women. The Government talk about aggression, but the only aggression is coming from them and their attack on the rights of working people.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I well remember as a young boy how my mother’s trade union helped her when she got a hernia from lifting tables as a dinner lady. Without its help, she would never have got the support she needed, and might even have lost her job. That experience of what trade unions actually do is something that Government Members often do not understand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

So much for the respect agenda, as my hon. Friend rightly points out.

[Dawn Butler]

Does my hon. Friend agree that those outside this place will look in bemusement at the argument that sitting in front of a PC and voting electronically will not be safe?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and gives further power to the point that I am making and the point that the hon. Member for Stafford is trying to make by virtue of his amendment.

[Dawn Butler]

I noted that nobody on the Government Benches could help my hon. Friend with his question. The only reason I could think of for such a ban is to try to destroy the trade union movement.

[Kevin Brennan]

Well, I am quite shocked by that accusation from my hon. Friend. On a serious note, there are many colleagues on the Government Benches who are members of trade unions. It was not so long ago that my old union, the National Union of Teachers, used to sponsor Conservative Members of Parliament. I will give hon. Members some benefit of the doubt here. I will actually believe for a moment that the majority of Conservative Members do not want to destroy the trade union movement, because they are democrats and we live in a democratic society. What conclusion could somebody looking at this proposal draw, other than that it exists to inflict damage in an illiberal and absolutely inappropriate manner on voluntary trade union associations and employees’ voluntary agreements with their employers?

Trade Union Bill

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

There is a new Business Secretary in this Government and he is the one presenting this Bill.

Hon. Members from both sides of this House are, to some extent, insulated from the consequences of strike action. We are lucky enough to have generous travel expenses so that we can hire a car or a taxi when there is a transport strike. We have secure jobs, where we get paid whether we make it into the office or not. Even a Back Bencher is among the top 5% of UK earners, so we can afford to deal with the childcare costs that might come with a school closure or some disruption. But what about the low-paid restaurant staff who miss a day’s work and a day’s pay because of a stoppage called by a handful of transport workers? What about the self-employed builder who has to turn down a week-long job because a strike by teachers means that his kids cannot go to school? What about the single mother who cannot afford to lose a day’s pay by refusing to cross a picket line? Should she be subjected to abuse and harassment simply for going to work?

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State talks about women on low pay. Many of these women and men do not have bank accounts, yet he is still trying to get rid of check-off, which makes it easier for people to join trade unions. How is that helping people to defend their own rights?

[Sajid Javid]

There is absolutely no relationship between check-off and bank accounts. Anyone who is able to take advantage of check-off must have a bank account in order to receive their salary in the first place.

I also want to talk about the impact on taxpayers, who have to fund the salaries of public servants, only for those public servants to spend their time on trade union business. Do taxpayers not have a right at least to know what their taxes are being spent on? These are the people who are not represented in current trade union legislation, and by increasing transparency, fairness and democracy, they are the people that this Bill will protect. [Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

I think the hon. Gentleman actually agrees with the rules that apply to businesses. When businesses make a political donation to whatever party, they rightly have to declare it and must be open and transparent. They often need the votes of their shareholders. These rules are absolutely consistent with that. The hon. Gentleman is surely not saying that there should be no transparency here.

[Dawn Butler]

The Secretary of State is being very generous with his time. On the point of businesses being open and transparent, should 40% of shareholders have to agree before a business can donate to a political party?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady will know that businesses or individuals have to declare it when they make a donation. It has to be transparent. All businesses have to declare their donations and will often have to get the permission of their shareholders. In public companies, those shareholders will receive a vote. These changes are entirely consistent with that. We are saying that if someone is a union member, they should know that some of their money is going towards political purposes. It should be open and transparent. That is not the case in England, Scotland and Wales. It is the case in Northern Ireland. If it works in Northern Ireland, it can work in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Turning to check-off, as the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General has announced, a proposed amendment to the Bill will seek to end the practice by which union subscriptions are processed through payroll in public sector organisations. The so-called check-off system was created in a time before direct debits existed and serves no purpose in the modern workplace. It has already been abolished across Whitehall. The amendment will extend this modernising step to the rest of the taxpayer-funded workforce.

I respect Britain’s working men and women. I believe that they are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves whether they wish to support their union’s political activity and they are perfectly capable of paying their union subscriptions themselves. To suggest otherwise is to say that Britain’s union members are too lazy to set up a direct debit or too stupid to make a decision about politics. That is patronising in the extreme.

In the past few weeks, the Labour party has shown that it is possible actively to recruit hundreds of thousands of members to a support a cause and that it is possible to get hard-working men and women to hand over their hard-earned money to back an idea that they believe in. Not one of Labour’s new members signed up by mistake because they failed to tick a box. Not one of the registered supporters was required to pay their £3 through their employer’s payroll. Every new recruit to the Labour party made an active decision to participate. If the party born of the unions can achieve that, surely the unions themselves can do the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Eagle]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend’s analysis of the effect of the Bill, despite the pantomime that we have just had from the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box.

[Dawn Butler]

May I declare that I am a proud trade unionist and was a full-time trade union official for more than 10 years? Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill’s real agenda is to stop public sector workers speaking out against this Government’s attacks on their pay and conditions?

[Ms Eagle]

It is impossible not to agree with my hon. Friend, and it saddens me beyond words that we are here today dealing with the most significant sustained and partisan attack on 6 million trade union members and their workplace organisations that we have seen in this country in the past 30 years. With the number of days lost to strike action down 90% in the past 20 years, there is no need whatsoever to employ the law in this draconian way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Stephens]

Yes, I do. The Bill is designed to continue austerity—that is exactly what it is about. It is about trying to curb the largest organisation in the UK that is campaigning against austerity.

These issues of gender equality are very important, because recent trends have shown that what is on the increase is pregnant workers being dismissed and women workers coming back from maternity leave being made redundant. That is a recent phenomenon and this Parliament will need to address it. The Government have not taken any of those issues into account. As we heard earlier, 270 Conservative Members would not have been elected if those thresholds had been in place.

There is also the issue of the deadlines on ballot times. I was interested to hear the Secretary of State say that industrial action would not be curbed, but in actual fact it could be. Let us say that a large employer issued a 45-day redundancy notice. If the trade unions have to give 14 days’ notice of a ballot and 14 days’ notice to take industrial action, it will be very difficult for them to organise themselves within that timeframe, and it could well make industrial action impossible.

We oppose the changes on political funds. This is about not just party politics and attacking the Labour party, but the general campaigning that the trade unions fund as well. I am talking here about equal pay; stronger maternity leave; 50:50 gender representation; and giving money to organisations such as HOPE not hate and other anti-racist organisations, community groups, and international aid organisations such as Justice for Colombia and Medical Aid for Palestine.

[Dawn Butler]

On that point, the Bakers Union is campaigning for fair rights for fast food workers, and is trying to increase hourly pay in America from $7 to $15 and in the UK to £10. Does the hon. Gentleman think that this measure is trying to restrict that kind of activity?

[Chris Stephens]

That is exactly what it is designed to do. This attack is to weaken the rights of trade union members. When it comes to political funds, it should be up to the trade union members to decide. If members have issues about who trade unions are funding, it is up to them to organise themselves and to take up the matter with their trade unions—just as I always do. When my union funds a campaign that I might not necessarily support, I am told, quite rightly, that it should be up to us to organise.

Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I know that my hon. Friend has been participating in debates in the House for a number of weeks now, but I would like to welcome her to her position. She is absolutely right in what she says, and I am going to come on to deal with it in more detail, because it is relevant to my work both as Minister for Women and Equalities and as Secretary of State for Education.

As I have said, one of the most substantial causes of the pay gap is the fact that women are still far less likely to work in more highly paid industries. As Education Secretary, I am very conscious of the fact that that begins with the different choices that children make at school. My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) has just made the same point.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is advancing some powerful and valid arguments. One possible way in which people can tackle the pay gap is to take their employer to a tribunal, but the Government have introduced tribunal fees, and, as a magistrate, I have observed that that has deterred many women from taking their employers to court. The number has fallen by 68%. How does the Secretary of State think we might change that statistic?

[Nicky Morgan]

I respect the hon. Lady’s experience as a magistrate. The fees were introduced during the last Parliament to reduce a £71 million burden on the taxpayer, but, as she may know, on 11 June the Government announced the start of a post-implementation review. We will consider how successful the policy has been in achieving its original objectives, which include the maintaining of access to justice. Of course, those whose claims are successful can recover the fees.

The important question that we shall discuss today, however, is how we can prevent the need for employees to go to tribunals. There should be no discrimination in the first place, in the context of both equal pay for equal work and closing the gender pay gap. I think that the hon. Lady should wait and see how our review progresses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Labour’s commitment to pay transparency and equality, and to gender equality, has been second to none in the history of Parliament.

It is 45 years since we passed the Equal Pay Act 1970, but in my constituency there is still a 13.3% pay gap. Women earn 87p for every pound that a man earns. That will continue to come as a shock to the men and women in my constituency—the engineers, the shop workers, the public sector workers, the small business employees and carers—who are earning a wage. They will consider themselves to be treated equally until they realise that there is actually pay inequality.

A number of incredibly important issues have been raised in this debate, particularly on the perception of the causes of pay inequality, whether relating to careers advice, role models, social attitudes or care responsibilities that can impact on women’s ability to hold down a full-time job. My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) raised important points about the impact that violence against women and girls can have on employment and on self-esteem. The ability to hold down a stable life has an impact on their experience in the workplace. I recognise and celebrate the work of the Women’s Business Council, which does a lot to tackle inequality in business.

I want to raise one issue in particular that I believe contributes to pay inequality: the perception of jobs in gender stereotypes. I want to ask where the agency of change is, because I do not want the debate to turn into a discussion about what women need to do differently. The debate needs to be about what business and society does and thinks, and how they need to change. Too often, pay has been set based on perceptions of whether something is a “woman’s job”. In a “man’s job” the perception will be that a woman might do it less well. In this Parliament, we have to break such perceptions. We need to say that there should be no glass ceilings and no no-go areas for women in any sector of employment.

[Dawn Butler]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case for why Members on all sides of the House should support the motion. The Secretary of State said that she supports the motion in principle. Should we just urge Government Members to support us?

[Seema Malhotra]

I continue to urge the Government to follow our lead. They have a few hours in which to do that, and I am sure all Opposition Members would welcome it.

I want to share a couple of cases of stereotype-busting by women who have entered different professions or jobs, starting with my sister. I do not have daughters, so I may just talk about sisters. I have three sisters—perhaps that can be a new dimension of the competition today. My sister is an engineer. She works with racing cars in America and is often the only woman involved in any particular race. She started out life, as I did, at the Green School in Hounslow. Being a racing car engineer was not part of the careers advice. Being a politician was not part of my careers advice either. I remember asking whether we might invite a politician to speak at the school and was told that we did not really want to be political.

I want to share the story of someone I met yesterday, a young woman called Caitlin, who is on an apprenticeship. She is a fork-lift truck driver, among other things. When I was shown how to operate an electric forklift truck by her in Feltham, I can honestly say that she was an inspiration to me, as someone who is busting a stereotype in the work she is doing. She is setting a true example, leading and encouraging others to take the pathway to a career in logistics.

I welcome the Government’s consultation, and I look forward to continuing debate and dialogue on this issue. I also want to support today’s call from Opposition parties for an annual gender pay check for this simple reason: there is no point in having a target, as aspiration or a process without a method of delivery being put in place behind it. I believe that this is a proportionate measure—one that would fit in well with the work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and one that would make a useful contribution to ensuring the achievement and the outcome of gender pay equality that we all wish to see.

Education and Adoption Bill

Dawn Butler Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

Given that the Secretary of State will not even take an intervention from Opposition Members, it is unclear whether she would be willing to accept reforms.

When the late Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher— the right hon. Gentleman will enjoy this point—first became Education Secretary, she told her permanent secretary, “I am worried about the content in schools, rather than the structure.” Sadly, this Education Secretary is wholly uninterested in what is taught and how it is taught: her first legislative act is yet more structural change. The Government have nothing to say on Sure Start, on effective early-years support, on smaller class sizes, on high-quality teaching, on strong school leadership, on reforming accountability or encouraging school collaboration. They have zero interest in parenting, attachment and early child development.

Education has moved on. The leading jurisdictions around the world are not responding to the 21st century challenge with top-down, target-driven centralism: they are devolving power, broadening the curriculum, learning to let go and unleashing excellence, not mandating adequacy.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that the Secretary of State failed to meet parents from St Andrew and St Francis School, who want to appeal against it being forced into academy status based on a flawed Ofsted report?