National Gallery Industrial Dispute

Mark Field Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

There have been a series of examples of what can only be described as victimisation, and I fear that this is one of them.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the National Gallery is in my constituency. I have received a number of representations and am very concerned about what is said tonight. I am afraid that I will have to leave shortly, but I will read the full Hansard report of the debate. This dispute is particularly regrettable because the gallery was one of the first employers in central London to pay the living wage, which we should all support. I hope that he will give at least some credit in that regard, although I accept that there are some very worrying specifics in relation to the case to which he refers.

[John McDonnell]

I certainly will, because it was a campaign by the PCS that achieved the living wage, but it was intervention by Ministers and others, as the right hon. Gentleman will recall, that urged the employers to give the living wage in London. That shows that interventions by Ministers and others do work in these cases. All that I am asking for today is that we all recognise our responsibility to try to bring both sides together to resolve the dispute, because the gallery is a national institution of great significance.

Some 22,000 have already written to Mark Getty, who chairs the gallery’s board of trustees, calling for Candy Udwin to be reinstated. The gallery’s argument on the matter is that cuts in its grant aid require it to organise a greater number of fundraising events, and that it therefore requires greater flexibility from its workforce. The gallery claims that the staff and PCS have

“refused to agree any changes”

or to agree greater flexibility and that, therefore, it had no choice but to outsource them to a private company. That is simply untrue, as has been shown in the evidence I have seen directly from the union and in meetings with the staff. The union has put forward an alternative plan that proposes a new flexible contract that would guarantee the gallery all the flexibility it needs, as well as being supported by the staff. The union has persistently asked gallery managers and trustees for the opportunity to discuss the alternative plan properly, which it believes has never happened.

The PCS tried to engage in talks at the gallery last year, and at ACAS earlier this year, and it continues to call for talks. The union has even carried out its own scoping exercise, which confirms that there would be support from the staff for its plan and that its proposals would guarantee the flexibility that the gallery requires. The union will shortly present its detailed proposals to ACAS and invite it to organise an independent scoping exercise to confirm the union’s findings with regard to the flexibility of working that will meet the gallery’s demands. Interestingly, as recently as this week, in Newsweek magazine, the outgoing director, Nicholas Penny, was reported as

“voicing a preference to keep visitor services in house.”

There is a responsibility on all of us, including the Minister, to encourage a resolution to this dispute to help get both sides back to talks before further damage is done to the gallery and its reputation. If we can help to encourage the gallery and the union to find an agreeable solution, that would give the incoming director, Dr Gabriele Finaldi, and the new chair of trustees, Hannah Rothschild, who take up their posts in August, an opportunity to heal the wounds of this dispute and the damage done by it and take the gallery forward with the staff in support of them.

I know that Ministers are loth to intervene in arm’s length bodies, but the National Gallery is funded by the taxpayer and has national significance, so it is a special case, where ministerial involvement is required. As the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) said, everyone was pleased when the intervention took place that helped to ensure that the gallery overturned its previous refusal to pay the London living wage, which will now be paid from 1 July. It would be possible for all of us present in the House, including the Minister, to make a statement to encourage the gallery to attend talks at ACAS in an attempt to resolve this dispute. That has happened before in past disputes and should happen again today.

The crux of the issue is that the National Gallery is arguing that it needs to raise additional funds through out-of-hours fundraising events—an important part of its strategy to cope with the reduction in grant aid. However, everyone is now saying that that should not be at the expense of the quality of the service that the gallery provides to those who visit it for free. In November 2013, the gallery and the board of trustees agreed with this, arguing that privatisation would not be in the interests of the gallery in terms of the quality of service or financially. A document published by the trustees said:

“A well trained and committed workforce in-house, with a good understanding of the Gallery’s specific circumstances”

will provide the best quality of service for the National Gallery, its 6 million visitors, and all those who access its collections for education and enjoyment.

There is no evidence that that does not remain the case. In fact, all the evidence shows that so far the privatisation and outsourcing is leading to reductions in the quality of terms and conditions for staff and of the service that those staff provide. There is some evidence for this at the National Gallery. CIS, the private company that has been brought in on a temporary basis to provide visitor services and security, has told its staff that it is not their job to answer questions from the public about the paintings. This is a gallery! PCS believes that there has also been an increase in the number of complaints from members of the public about the behaviour of the staff working for CIS.

Let us contrast that with the National Gallery’s own staff. They are extremely knowledgeable about the collection and see it as part of their duties to inform the public about the paintings, where they are located, and if they are off-show for any reason, as well as giving information or advice if asked. That is a crucial service provided at the gallery, especially for those visiting for the first time or those without specialist knowledge of the collection. Staff who are planned to be outsourced include those in the information service, those who deal with school bookings and support for school visits, and those who deal with complaints and freedom of information requests. The process of privatisation is going on apace, threatening all the expertise that has been built up over generations.