Trade Union Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I see two or more new faces on the Opposition Front Bench this afternoon, and I want to begin by congratulating my new opposite number, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), on her appointment. She is certainly no stranger to Westminster; when she was first elected, I was just out of university. I believe that today marks the first time that our paths have crossed at the Dispatch Box, but I have long admired her skills as a parliamentarian and I look forward to working with her in the months ahead. I wish her all the very best.

I also want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna). We disagreed on many things, except our choice of haircut, but it was always a pleasure to debate with him and I am sure that he will continue to serve and represent his constituents with the passion and dedication that he repeatedly showed at the Dispatch Box.

I am also delighted to welcome the new Leader of the Opposition, the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), to the Front Bench. I congratulate him on his resounding victory in the election and wish him the very best of luck in his new role. He and I have two things in common, Mr Speaker. The first is that you will never catch either of us trying to eat a bacon sandwich. The second is that, like Members on both sides of the House, we both came into politics because we wanted to leave the world a better place than we found it. Obviously, you could put a rather large piece of cigarette paper between our ideas on how to achieve that, but his goal is the same as mine: a society that is fairer, more transparent and more just, in which the needs of the many are not outweighed by the wants of a few.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

He is going to withdraw the Bill.

[Sajid Javid]

That is wishful thinking by the new Leader of the Opposition.

Since the industrial revolution, Britain’s trade unions have done much to help to deliver that fairer society that I was describing. They have helped to secure higher wages, safer workplaces and stronger employee rights. They have fought for social justice and campaigned for freedom and democracy, and they have supplied the House with some of its most eloquent and influential Members, including Leaders of the Opposition.

Unions helped my father when he first worked in the cotton mills. They helped him again when a whites-only policy threatened to block him from becoming a bus driver. Just as the workplace has evolved and improved since that time, so the trade unions and the laws that govern them have developed too. I hope that, in 2015, no one would argue for the return of the closed shop, the show-of-hands votes in dimly lit car parks or the wildcat walk-outs enforced by a handful of heavies. That is why the Labour Government repealed not a single piece of union legislation during their 13 years in power. Now it is time for Britain’s unions to take the next step, and the Bill will help to achieve just that.