Trade Union Reform (Civil Service)

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

It is very hard to tell.

Let me deal head on with the hon. Lady’s points. She says that this is an attack on public servants, but it is absolutely the contrary. She talks as if this is an attack on union facility time. It is not. I said in my statement—she might have listened to it; she had it in advance—that I supported the use of facility time. Facility time for trade union duties is protected by law. Trade union duties—the resolution of disputes and grievances—are important, and the presence of trade union officials and representatives within the workplace can be helpful in achieving that. What we are concerned with is the abuse and the use of paid time off in facility time for large numbers of civil servants to attend their union conferences with their expenses paid by the public. That is not acceptable. That is what we have called time on.

I know that the hon. Lady and her colleagues do not like it, and we know what the reason is. The reason is perfectly simple: it is that the Labour party is paid for and puppet-mastered by the trade unions. She should come clean and say that the Labour party election campaign that she is trying to hold together and conduct is paid for by exactly the trade union leaders who have no doubt written the script that she has read out to the House today.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

The practices that the Minister described as seeing on his arrival at the Cabinet Office in 2010 will have come as a complete shock to my constituents. May I tell him that my constituents will very much support the steps he has taken to ensure fair use of union time by officials?

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend is completely right. To be honest, it was a complete shock to us to see how much this system had been abused, and how little effort was made by our predecessors to count and control the costs of what was happening. Opposition Members say that this is an attack on public servants, but the truth is that public servants would much rather have this money spent on public services, which is their vocation, than on supporting trade union officials at the taxpayers’ expense.