Lord Bragg
Main Page: Lord Bragg (Labour - Life peer)
Lord Bragg (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to congratulate my noble friend Lord Watts on his maiden speech. I agree with every word of it—that helps—and clearly with the influence of Liverpool above all. Local government, the House of Commons and chairing the PLP—wow. That is enough of an introduction to this place, and I hope that he intervenes a great deal more often.
On Sir Christopher Wren’s tomb in St Paul’s Cathedral, as I am sure noble Lords will know, there is an inscription that reads, “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice”—“If you seek a monument, look around”. I would say that the same thing has happened today in this House. Look around at the monument of opinions of so many in this House of unparalleled experience and expertise in this matter, and listen to the quality, pinpoint detail and strength of their objections to the Bill. It has been dismantled. Their voices have allies all over the country. The senior political adviser at CIPD said:
“We do not really see the need for legislation on this topic”.
Liberty, Amnesty International and the British Institute of Human Rights argue that the Bill would undermine the rights of all working people. Some 70 local authorities and NHS employers have publicly criticised it.
Why are the unions the only organisation in the UK legally required to hold postal-only ballots, which tend to be more expensive and lead to lower turnouts? Why is it so rarely said that unionised workplaces are safer places and that union representatives play a big role in improving morale? Yet this Government seem to believe, in an ancient way, that the trade union movement is some sort of demon dragon in our society that needs to be made toothless.
For centuries, this country—as others, but we are talking about ourselves today—has suffered from damaging splits between the powerful, the less powerful and the powerless. We have had slaves over the centuries, serfs, indented servants and unsecured labour, all dominated by the hydra-headed powerful. There is a sense in which that chasmic characteristic still obtains. National characteristics persist, and the powerful and the privileged, often in new shapes and forms, have fought very hard indeed to hold on to their power and privileges. Only an organised power of at least equal determination can curtail and civilise such entrenched autocracies, as my noble friend Lord Watts referred to in his excellent speech.
Until comparatively recently—a mere 100 years ago—we have had bestial housing, the herding of insecure workforces and a life for most of the people in this country that was nasty, brutish and short. This was often at times when we were among the richest countries—sometimes the very richest—not only in the world then, but perhaps which the world had hitherto ever seen. That has changed, but only because of constant struggle. It has been helped by honoured men and women of all classes, and of all political and religious persuasions and none, but it was the trade union movement that got a grip on it in the late 19th century and established a foundation on which a fairer society could exist, in which many more shared in economic prosperity and in which many more than ever before had opportunities to improve their condition. Many more could live a life worth living, instead of being humiliated, discounted and degraded.
Lest we forget: just as we pay our dues to the continuing stabilising influence of the Queen and this parliamentary system in our constitutional democracy, and just as we respect hard-won victories in the law and the Armed Forces, so we need to bear in mind and honour what the trade unions have done and still do for our society. These men and women gave to millions over the centuries a life unimaginable to them beforehand. To merely demonise them is unworthy. We owe them a great debt. Of course, at times the unions have seemed unreasonable and implacable, and sometimes appear to be bent on frustrated wrecking as the only way they can expedite change. But that is not the greater part of their history—not a bit of it. Their achievement has been to liberate and improve the lot of the mass of the British people. That is what they have done.
Let us compare the other side, because we have two sides here. What about the great controllers: government and management? What have they contributed along the way? How did management and government manage to lose the basis and guts of what, until the middle of the last century, was one of the greatest manufacturing conurbations in the world? How did British management and government, for instance, lose our mighty shipbuilding industry when other comparable countries kept or improved theirs? It was not only the unions that were intransigent and incompetent, so why has an island that has built ships since the time of Alfred the Great managed to kill off such a major tradition?
Where were the new ideas from our controllers and managers? Where was the long-term investment? Where was there any understanding of the inevitable economic and personal devastation? Where was the will to build anew? Where was the leadership? Absent. And on what grounds was that wasting of other great industries, especially in the north, leaving 3 million often highly skilled people unemployed and without provision for their future? Has that ever been convincingly justified by management or government?
We live in a country that is still lucky to have outstandingly clever people at all levels of our society and in many disciplines. It is worth remembering that arguably the greatest revolution in world history, the Industrial Revolution, which founded our prosperity, started, flourished and conquered from here, and was seeded and nourished by working men, most of whom had left school by the age of 13 or l4. It is also worth reminding the House that today in science, thanks to our universities, we are the second greatest research engine in the world.
It used to be said that we were a providential island—a special case. Indeed, for a small place we have had, and still have, an extraordinary—perhaps unique—range of the highest talents across the waterfront throughout our history, save one: we have not the talent to mend the rifts between the powerful and the powerless, between them and us—or “them and uz”, as the poet, Tony Harrison said—and all the permutations of that. Why can we not merge these two forces and each learn from the other and be prepared to respect, encourage and involve the other? This is not a dream. Today we are a small island in a world which demands bigger and bigger forces and commitments. We need creative parity: instead, we have an unimaginative, unsympathetic, old class act.
Instead of exacerbating basic divisions in this country, which this Bill seeks to do, why cannot the Government work out a well thought through, permanent structure for a more equal playing field, with full contributions from all parts of our increasingly diverse society? Why is there no vision, or any hope of that, in the Bill? So many people want it to happen. It need not be so very difficult—and, if it is, it will be all the more rewarding to succeed. What I am saying may seem simplistic and obvious and pie in the sky, but can anyone propose a better option for bringing to an end this unjust, oppressive, regressive civil struggle? I look forward to an amended Bill.