Equal Franchise Act 1928

Debate between Jo Stevens and Tommy Sheppard

Thursday 5th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tommy Sheppard]

Indeed. It would probably be unfair to expect the Cabinet Office Minister to respond to that point on behalf of the Government, but perhaps she will commit to take it back to discuss with colleagues.

It would be remiss of me to speak on behalf of the Scottish National party without saying something about the many great women who have contributed much to the politics not just of Scotland but of the United Kingdom as a whole. I shall mention only three: in 1967 Winnie Ewing tore the establishment apart by winning the Hamilton by-election, surprising everyone in British politics and beginning 51 years of unbroken representation by my party in this place; in the following decade Margo MacDonald did the same in not one but two by-elections, upturning the political firmament and in many ways creating the conditions that have led to the modern political dynamic in Scotland now; and of course Nicola Sturgeon, our First Minister in Scotland, who has been a beacon, an inspiration and a role model for young women in Scotland and throughout Europe and the modern world.

Nicola Sturgeon presides over one of the few Cabinets among Governments that is gender-balanced, made up half of women and half of men. It has been praised as a role model by the United Nations. The Scottish Government are also moving forward in many other respects to improve the representation of women in public life, setting targets and quotas for representation in our public board rooms, hoping to encourage the private sector to follow suit.

There has been a big debate about quotas—whether they are a right and proper thing and whether they genuinely advance women or are in some ways unnecessary or patronising to women. My experience is clear: quotas are a way of breaking the inertia and stasis that surround the existing system. It is a way of asking and answering a question about whether women are capable of doing the job. When given the chance, they are not just capable but in my view more capable than their male counterparts. That is the experience of the Scottish Government in action, which the rest of the United Kingdom might choose to learn from.

[Jo Stevens]

The Labour party has the highest proportion of female MPs, which has been achieved through all-women shortlists—a mechanism that was put in place to make that change. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that similar mechanisms should be put in place across all political parties?

[Tommy Sheppard]

Yes. I am not saying that we should necessarily copy the Labour party rulebook, but a similar objective and similar mechanisms should certainly be put in place. We have something similar in my party, although not for every seat. Many seats that we do not hold are designated as all-women shortlists so a female candidate is selected. In Scotland, that has resulted in 43% of the governing party, my party, being women—still not 50%, but further forward than many other parties can boast of. Those policies have obsolescence built in, because once they have achieved the desired effect, they are no longer necessary.

As we reflect on the 90th anniversary of universal suffrage and the 100th anniversary of the beginning of votes for women, we should also consider what we can do across the globe as an international player. In many countries, the rights of women resemble what they were in this country 90 years or 100 years ago. That needs to be built into our foreign policy much more—again, I do not expect the Cabinet Minister to respond to that—so that our relationship with other countries is conditioned and qualified by the way in which they treat their citizens and particularly women in their societies. We should not have beneficial relations, roll out the red carpet or sign arms deals, or whatever, with countries that manifestly practise discrimination within their own borders. That would bring long-overdue principle into politics and Government policy and, as we look forward on this anniversary, it would be a practical contribution that we could make to celebrate the gains already made and recognise how much still needs to be done throughout the world.

Trade Union Bill

Debate between Jo Stevens and Tommy Sheppard

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

On Second Reading, I asked a question to which I have had no answer to date. Quite simply, what problem is this proposed legislation designed to solve? What calamity do we have in our land in the field of industrial relations that means that the Government of the day must prioritise this legislation? I cannot find any. The average worker in the United Kingdom goes on strike for one day every 15 years. It is therefore ridiculous that this matter should be the priority of the Government.

I believe that the only reason the Bill is before us, with so few Government Members listening to the debate, is purely ideological. I do not say that all Members or all strands of the Conservative party are against trade unions, but there most definitely is a strand that is very unempathetic to trade unions and that sees the ability of people to combine together in the workforce to prosecute their interests as an impediment on the rights of employers to make their profits and run their enterprises as they see fit. There is a hostile attitude to trade unions. That, unfortunately for the working people of this country, is the strand within the Tory party that is in the ascendency and in the driving seat in respect of this legislation.

It is a great irony, is it not, that to introduce this legislation, the Conservative party will have to have an unprecedented degree of state interference in the affairs of private enterprise? There will have to be state regulation of trade unions that is more akin to a totalitarian than a democratic regime.

I support the SNP amendments that would require consent from the local and devolved authorities in the United Kingdom for the provisions of the Bill to be implemented. In parallel with this discussion, we have been having a debate on the Scotland Bill about the competences and authorities that should go to the Scottish Parliament. In fact, we argued that this entire area should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament simply because it would mean that proposals such as this Bill would never see the light of day. However, we know that there is not a majority in this House for devolving these powers and I want it to be clear that we are not arguing for that today.

What we are arguing for goes to the heart of the debate in this country about who runs public services. It has been the will of this Parliament that many of our public services should be devolved to local and devolved administrations. It is therefore not right for this Parliament to hinder the ability of the managers of those services to deliver them by interfering and setting requirements on the most important resource that is available to them: the workforce. Just because the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has a problem managing relations on the London underground, the rest of country should not have to suffer.

A series of amendments seek consent on each of the major provisions in the Bill. I will speak about some of those measures, but I will try not to repeat what has already been said by my hon. Friends, much of which I completely agree with. A number of mechanisms in the Bill are designed to make it harder for a trade union to win a ballot to go on strike—let us be clear about that objective. However, Conservative Members are mistaken if they think that that will make a problem go away.

It seems that among the authors of this Bill there is great ignorance about the process of managing industry. Often, if a concern or dispute arises among the workforce, and members go to their trade union and the union decides to do something, that can be a way of resolving a dispute or problem to the benefit of the industry or service concerned. The additional measures in the Bill will make it harder for unions to go on strike, but that will let problems fester and dysfunction continue, which will not benefit the trade, industry or service in which the dispute is taking place. When a union eventually passes those hurdles and gets a mandate for a strike, that strike will be bigger, longer and more vicious than it ought to have been had the matter been attended to at an earlier stage. I contend that measures that the Government think are about making it harder for unions to take strike action will have a deleterious effect on industrial relations and make it harder for the management of public or private services to deliver and get the consent of their workforce.

Given the way that the issue is being discussed, it seems that Conservative Members conceive of facility time as some sort of stipend whereby union officials spend all day organising strike action and trying to bring industry to its knees. It is nothing of the kind, and if those Members had worked in a public service for one day, they would understand that often, union stewards and officials play an extremely constructive role at local level in the delivery of that industry or service. In many ways, their role can be described as that of a welfare officer, and officials often help out individual employees who may have problems with management or at work, but who may also just have personal problems that are affecting their work.

[Jo Stevens]

When giving evidence to the Bill Committee, the general secretary of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, John Hannett, said that trade unions are problem solvers rather than problem causers. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

[Tommy Sheppard]

I agree wholeheartedly and my experience all my working life, as both employer and employee, indicates that that is exactly the case. Facility time can be a good thing for management and industry, and for getting things done.

If a local authority, health board or whatever has a check-off facility that has been voluntarily agreed with its workers to deduct a payroll subscription for a union, how can it be okay for that to be outlawed and criminalised, when the same facility can be used by the National Trust or any charity or insurance scheme that wishes? That is frankly ridiculous and punitive in the extreme, and it belies the fact that the Bill, despite its title, is an anti-trade union Bill. Hopefully we will get an explanation for that when the Minister winds up the debate. If this is about money and the cost to the public sector, I am sure that unions will be happy to negotiate paying. As the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) remarked earlier, local authorities and others may be able to make money out of providing a service for payroll check-off.

Time is short and I know that other Members want to speak. I say simply that if the amendment is voted down and we do not agree to the consent of the London Mayor, Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament, or whoever is delivering the service being required for this provision to be implemented, and that the Government will force services to do whatever they want, even if that does not make sense locally, will we not be entering into uncharted territory? The Government will effectively be declaring that they are prepared to go to war with the devolved Administrations and local authorities in this country, which they have said should be responsible for the delivery of those services.

As I have said so many times, this is one of the things in the Conservatives’ manifesto that I do not think they ever expected they would have to implement. They do not have a mandate for this, and I ask them, even at this eleventh hour, to pull back.