Shrewsbury 24 (Release of Papers)

Debate between Ian Mearns and Steve Rotheram

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) claims to be a member of the most transparent Government ever. Ricky Tomlinson might have a couple of words to say about that. I congratulate—[Laughter.] Someone’s just got it!

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) on the tenacity he deployed to secure today’s debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee, which has been persuaded, unlike those on the Government Benches, that this issue is important enough to warrant a full parliamentary debate. It is important that we stick to the terms of the motion.

It is true to say that this debate has been a long, long time coming. We now know more than ever about the political, judicial, media and police manipulation that scarred the working lives of 24 ordinary men, who were wrongly convicted on trumped-up charges, with six of them unjustly jailed. As John Platt-Mills, QC, said:

“The trial of the Shrewsbury Pickets is the only case I know of where the government has ordered a prosecution in defiance of the advice of senior police and prosecution authorities”.

I want to praise on the record the remarkable persistence of the campaigners over the past four decades. In particular, I praise Ricky Tomlinson for the way in which he has used his fame as an actor to highlight this injustice. Despite his success, he has remained steadfastly shoulder to shoulder in solidarity with the other Shrewsbury pickets and their families. Ricky said from the dock during his trial:

“I know my children when they are old enough, will understand that the struggle we took part in was for their benefit and for the benefit and interest of building workers and their families.”

When I was indentured as an apprentice bricklayer in 1978, notwithstanding the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, Britain’s building sites were still workplaces of great danger and the conditions for workers were shockingly poor. On most sites, there were no proper toilets, washbasins or lockers. There were certainly no hard hats, goggles, gloves and masks as standard personal protective equipment. People died daily.

When workers had the audacity to ask the state to take action and stop the carnage, the Government of the day interfered in the business of the judiciary, resulting in the most political and corrupt criminal trial that had been seen in peacetime Britain.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

If the strike and the prosecutions are a matter of such importance to national security that the papers will not be released 40 years later, why did it take the police five months to make any arrests?

[Steve Rotheram]

I will develop that point at the end of my speech and explain why it is so wrong that it has taken so long even for the matter to be debated in this House.

The people we are talking about were arrested on trumped-up charges, received a dodgy trial and were given unsound convictions. That would not be allowed and would not be acceptable today, and it should not have been allowed and should not have been acceptable then. It was a legal process that would shame a third-world dictatorship.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon has suggested, the exploitation of workers and the unacceptable and unsafe working conditions in which workers were forced to operate were the bedrock of the first ever national building workers’ strike in 1972. As a result of that national strike, which was settled on 16 September 1972, the building workers succeeded in achieving an across-the-board increase for all trades working in the construction industry. There was, however, enormous political anxiety as a result of that victory, fuelled by a targeted lobbying campaign by the National Federation of Building Trades Employers. Shrewsbury 24 campaigners firmly believe that the end of the strike was in fact the beginning of the employers’ campaign to have pickets prosecuted, and to use that as a deterrent should they ever have the temerity to take further industrial action.

Housing Benefit

Debate between Ian Mearns and Steve Rotheram

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

In the lead up to the 2010 general election and in a desperate attempt to detoxify the brand, two words were bandied about to persuade the electorate that there would be a different kind of Tory if the Conservatives were elected. Those two words were “compassionate conservatism”, whatever that is. Wolves in sheep’s clothing—that is what I call it. No one standing on a Tory ticket in the next general election should be in any doubt whatsoever that once again it will be two words that will define their heartless brand of ideological politics—“bedroom tax”.

What happened to the Prime Minister’s mantra that we are all in this together? What happened to the Chancellor’s claim that he would not balance the Budget on the backs of ordinary people? Whatever happened to big society? Almost two thirds of those affected by the bedroom tax in my part of the world are disabled—that is 21,000 people hit the hardest while millionaires get tens of thousands of pounds every year in a Tory tax bung. Before the inevitable accusations of being feckless or unemployable are levelled against any of my constituents by Members such as the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), whose rant should be videoed and played to anyone who doubts that it is the same old Tories, let me point out that 6,000 people on Merseyside who are now in rental arrears had never missed a payment in their life until the coalition’s welfare changes. The majority of those clobbered by this Con-Dem con trick are ordinary working people on low wages. This is entirely a Tory and Lib Dem-manufactured hardship imposed on those who need help the most, driven not by fiscal constraints but by political dogma.

I want to concentrate on three consequential areas of this policy. First, the Government have not given sufficient regard to the impact that it has already had on housing associations.

[Ian Mearns]

My hon. Friend is right that there is a significant impact on housing associations. The Home Group, a large housing association that has many properties in my borough of Gateshead and thousands of properties across the north of England, has seen a 53% increase in arrears in the past 12 months, mainly as a result of the bedroom tax.

Blacklisting

Debate between Ian Mearns and Steve Rotheram

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the shadow Business Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), on demonstrating Labour’s solidarity with the construction industry by tabling the motion for today’s important debate. I also congratulate all Members who have spoken—with the obvious exception of the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who could not even be bothered to follow parliamentary convention and stay in the Chamber for two speeches after he had spoken.

After decades in which successive Parliaments have failed to rectify a national disgrace, we would not be here today without the solidarity, dignity and determination of the rank-and-file construction workers, whose spirit and tenacity in the face of adversity and hardship has been truly inspirational. I would like to place on record my gratitude to the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, which I first joined as a teenage apprentice bricklayer in 1979—[Interruption.] No, it was not child labour. UCATT has led the fight on behalf of construction workers for many decades.

In October last year, I tabled early-day motion 609, entitled “Blacklisted Workers”, which urged colleagues to support the call for justice for those placed on lists that prevented them from gaining or retaining jobs. To date, the early-day motion has received the support of 68 Members from six political parties. It should be pointed out, however, that not a single Conservative and only one Liberal Democrat bothered to sign it. Perhaps that will change after today’s debate, which has given us the chance to put clearly on the record whether we are on the side of insidious and immoral business practices or on the side of ordinary hard-working people.

Let me also declare an interest. Before coming to this place, I spent the best part of three decades working in the construction sector in one guise or another and saw first hand the effect that blacklisting had. Blacklisting is a national scandal, and recent revelations have demonstrated that the regulations introduced in the last decades did not go far enough.

I want to use my contribution to outline three things that I believe must now happen. First, I absolutely want to see all forms of blacklisting made illegal; secondly, I want to see criminal sanctions brought to bear against any individual or organisation that supplied, solicited or used blacklisting material; and finally, I want to see the introduction through primary legislation of a blacklisted worker’s right to compensation.

March 2009 proved to be a landmark moment for the construction industry. As we have heard, the ICO uncovered evidence against 44 companies—44 of some of the biggest companies in the industry—clearly showing that they were corrupt to the very core. They had purchased blacklists and used them to deny construction workers their legitimate right of employment. What made these revelations all the more devastating was that the companies that used blacklists were the same companies profiteering from millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money through public sector contracts.

How do we begin to end this scandal? It has to start by making blacklisting illegal. Looking specifically at the legislation that governs the rights of trade union members, we can clearly see that it does not offer adequate protection. First, section 137 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 makes it unlawful for an employer to refuse to employ someone because of his or her membership or non-membership of a trade union. The Act does not make blacklisting illegal.

Secondly, there is the Data Protection Act 1998—the Act eventually used to prosecute Ian Kerr, the man who ran the Consulting Association. It is unclear with this Act whether or not a person’s trade union activity qualifies as data in the same way as details of a person’s trade union membership number qualifies as data. The gap in legislation needs to be addressed, because until we amend the law explicitly to state that blacklisting is illegal, the Act will not adequately protect workers.

The third piece of legislation is the Employment Relations Act 1999, which empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations prohibiting the use or sale of blacklists. The last Labour Government did many things well—we improved the health and safety of construction workers, and their employment rights, more than any other Government in history—but, in my opinion, we missed the chance to end this scandal once and for all. I hope that the Secretary of State will learn from previous mistakes.

I shall have to leave out the next bit of my speech, because the time limit is down to six minutes, and after taking out four pages—I think I am finally there—

[Ian Mearns]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Steve Rotheram]

Of course.

[Ian Mearns]

I wonder whether, in the last couple of moments available to him, my hon. Friend has time to suggest what should happen to those who are guilty of using blacklists as part of their employment practice.

[Steve Rotheram]

I thank my hon. Friend for saving me.

I know from personal experience that those who found themselves on blacklists were the kind of workers who fought for a safer work environment for themselves and their colleagues. They were the kind of workers who did not turn a blind eye when the company tried to dock apprentices’ wages, or failed to pay the work force on time. What kind of Parliament would we be if we failed to stand up for responsible workers who have been punished by irresponsible companies for many years?

We should all remember that blacklisting was not an act of blissful ignorance, but an act of blatant immorality. It should never be allowed to happen again.