Trade Union Bill (Fourth sitting)

Edward Argar Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

We have sittings such as this one to try to get the message across. I have got a little bit of leeway to gain back time; I am aware of that. But I would like to move on, because the next questioner is Edward Argar.

[Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)]

Q 363 Mr Wrack, thank you very much for your clarification there, particularly of that court case, and thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) for his comment. Going back to the evidence from the commissioner this morning, in the course of that dispute in 2010, was access in any way to any fire station being used by contingency crews impeded by any FBU members at any point?

Matt Wrack: Again, I found it somewhat surprising that Mr Dobson presented it in that way. We had pickets on fire stations, as we are perfectly entitled to do, and there were no such barricades. There was a police presence on some occasions. We co-operated, and we had interesting evidence from the police earlier today. We co-operated with the police on every occasion that there were discussions. It is utterly misleading, as again was suggested, to say that there were any delays to emergency calls as a result of the actions of FBU pickets during that dispute.

[Edward Argar]

Q 364 That is not quite what I asked; I am grateful for that, but it is not quite what I asked. Did those pickets in any way impede any ingress or egress to and from those stations?

Matt Wrack: They were picketing their place of work. What happened in general is that the replacement agency staff drove up to the fire station and drove off.

[Edward Argar]

Q 365 So you say that they were picketing their place of work. What happened in general? Were there any occasions when access was physically blocked?

Matt Wrack: I think I have explained that. Firefighters were picketing their place of work. Replacement agency staff drove up and drove off. That is what happened. There was no pushing and shoving; if you have got images of 1970s TV programmes, that is not what happened in any of these situations.

[Edward Argar]

Q 366 Would you agree or disagree with the view—I suspect that I know the answer, but I will ask the question—that what you have just said, if we accept it, that some people drove up and drove off again, shows that those people felt intimidated by the presence of those pickets and the behaviour, which caused them to drive away again?

Matt Wrack: Let us be clear about the right to picket. The right to picket is being interpreted by some people as an attempt to intimidate. The right to picket is about trying to persuade other workers to comply with the call to take action. In this case—again, Ron Dobson seemed to forget the cause of the dispute. The cause of the dispute was that he had issued a sacking notice to 5,000 London firefighters; the entire workforce were being sacked. So you can imagine that some of them were quite irate about that. However, where we had the opportunity to speak to those agency replacement staff, we did so, and in a number of cases the police assisted us in doing that. We put our case to those agency staff; unfortunately, they carried on with the work they were undertaking.

[Edward Argar]

Q 367 I have a couple of very quick follow-ups. You will be familiar with the Carr report. Paragraph 4.66 refers to evidence provided by Assistant Commissioner Dave Brown on behalf of the London fire brigade, in which he made a number of allegations. I would be grateful for your reaction to them, either collectively or individually. He said that,

“tactics included…Stations left open or barricaded and fire alarms activated…Security codes at fire stations changed…Station gates padlocked and crews cars blocking forecourts preventing access for stand-in crews.”

Those are just a few of the number of things he suggested. Do you have any reaction to the assertions in that report, Mr Wrack?

Matt Wrack: Again, I have known Dave Brown a long time. I worked on the same watch as him at one point. His report has not been backed up by any evidence. The interesting point in all this is the question: what did the police do? If there were concerns about this and implications of serious breaches of public order, the police would have intervened. The police did not intervene. We had good relations and good co-ordination with the police throughout all the protests that took place during that dispute. None of our members were arrested. The only two arrests were of two people who decided to work through that dispute and ran over two people who were protesting. I reject those suggestions from Mr Brown, but we are happy to look at any evidence that he actually has with any detail on that.

[The Chair]

May I point out to people giving evidence and answering questions and to Members that we are approaching having used two thirds of our time? We should make it more succinct if you want to get the answers in. I call Chris Stephens.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden]

Q 427 It is just me, then. Why, then, have we not seen the draft regulations before now?

Nick Boles: Because we were waiting to analyse the very, very substantial response to the consultation that finished, I think, only at the beginning of September.

[Edward Argar]

Q 428 I have two very brief questions, the first of which is for the Minister for Skills. Minister, you have been very clear that you respect the right to strike, as we all do, and that this Bill does not, despite some alarmist suggestions, remove that right. The NASUWT actually acknowledged in its evidence that strikes would continue. Would it be a fair characterisation to say that it ensures that all the people and families currently at risk of having their daily and working lives significantly disrupted by strike action on a very low turnout will have a slightly more balanced set of protections to ensure that strikes have genuine support?

Nick Boles: Yes, exactly. The NASUWT should know well, because there have been strikes in the teaching profession on a very low turnout and on ancient ballots. Ultimately, that just really irritates people. They accept that they are going to be disrupted in a legitimate strike; they just want to know that it is at least recent and that enough people supported it.

[Edward Argar]

Q 429 I also have a quick question to the Minister for the Cabinet Office, reflecting on the comments that were attributed to him over the summer. My recollection—I hope he will correct me and clarify this—is that he was saying, quite rightly, that if there were a major strike that would significantly impact people’s daily and working lives, the Government would do what we would expect them to do and ensure that they put the British public first and do what they could to minimise the disruptions. Is that a fair characterisation of what you actually said, Minister?

Matthew Hancock: That is a fair characterisation. It is a remarkable position for the Labour party to come to and a point of political point scoring if they think it is wrong for a Government Minister to say that we will do all we can to protect the public from the disruption of major strikes. This was in the context of Len McCluskey calling for a general strike and a series of unions making a lot of noise about that. It is perfectly reasonable for the Government to use their co-ordinating facilities to ensure that the response to a strike—especially a generalised and widespread strike—is as well co-ordinated and reasonable as possible. The idea that a Government should not use such facilities is, frankly, ludicrous.

On the same point, I would add one other thing. This is an evidence session, so it is important to bring a few facts to bear. When Mr Doughty talked about the number of working days lost, it struck me that there was something odd about saying “over the last six months”, because that is a very unusual way of using statistics. It rankled because it did not quite ring true, and yesterday I read the labour market statistics that the Office for National Statistics published. In 2011, 1.39 million working days were lost from labour disputes. In 2014, 788,000 working days were lost. When there is further debate on this, which no doubt there will be in Committee, people should probably use the ONS statistics, rather than the odd attribution made by Mr Doughty.

[The Chair]

If both sides are not being helpful, I am going to be. I want to ensure that the Members who are left to ask questions can ask questions. If they are not replied to in this Committee, I will ask the two Ministers to go away and reply to them in writing. I am going to ask Members to be very succinct in what they are asking for.