Industrial Action Update

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I point out to the hon. Lady that what the police do locally affects every single resident in the area, and every single resident over the age of 18 has the right to vote in those elections. When unions call strikes that affect local residents, parents and vulnerable people who depend on public services, such people are not consulted. It is not asking very much to require a union, when it calls its members out on strike in ways that damage the public, to have to rely on a vote of substantive quantity, with a majority behind it.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call birthday boy Sir Tony Baldry.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Was it not Lord Hutton, a former Labour Cabinet Minister, who made it clear that as we are all living longer, everyone will have to pay more into their pensions and to work longer? Has my right hon. Friend had any shadow of a scintilla of a suggestion from the shadow Chancellor that if Labour were elected, it would treat either public sector pensions or public sector pay in any way differently from the present Government?