Trade Union Bill

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as a proud member of the Unite union, and I draw attention to my relevant declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and I am a member of the trade union and Unite groups for Members of Parliament.

A fundamental principle is at stake in this Bill, which is the ability of working people to combine in the trade union movement for their collective benefit—a combining together that has brought higher wages, better working conditions and enhanced rights at work. The Secretary of State made a number of historical references in his opening speech. He quoted two Labour Prime Ministers—Harold Wilson and Clement Attlee—but he was somewhat selective in the history that he put before the House.

The fear of working people collecting together led to trade unions being illegal in this country for so long and to the Combination Acts, and only in 1871 was a limited right to picket peacefully introduced. The Conservative party’s history is to attack that right to collect together. The Secretary of State stood at the Dispatch Box and tried to present the concept of having to opt in to the political levy as an act of modernisation. The Conservatives have tried that before. That is precisely what was in the Trade Disputes and Trade Unions Act 1927, and it was regarded as a highly vindictive act after the general strike, which led—or at least contributed to—their election defeat in 1929.

Interestingly, when he quoted Clement Attlee the Secretary of State did not mention that it was Attlee’s Labour Government in 1946 that reversed that necessity to opt in to the political levy, because that was regarded as taking away power and balancing it too far from workers in the workplace. Let us not present something that has been a previous historical failure as an act of modernisation in 2015. This Bill is based on two fundamental flaws.

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that local government and public services are completely devolved to Wales, and that therefore the measures in the Bill and the check-off could not possible apply in Wales?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is right to say that the Government have failed to take into account the views and positions of the devolved parts of the United Kingdom—and that is not all that they have failed to take into account.

Striking is not a first resort, it is a last resort, but unfortunately the Bill is based on that misconception. My father was on strike when I was born, in the steel strike of 1980. Conservative Members have no idea about the hardship caused to the families of strikers when they go out on strike. That is why it is always a last resort.

The Bill is also based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the law as it stands. Nowhere is that better illustrated than in clause 9, which is the new set of requirements in relation to picketing. Conservative Members really must have little faith in the police and their ability to identify people on a picket line, given the number of requirements to be introduced. At the moment, only six people can picket at a time, but apparently not only will the picket supervisor’s name be required, but they must have a letter to show to a police constable or

“any other person who reasonably asks to see it.”

I am not sure who that would be. Hopefully it will be the Secretary of State, because if he attended a picket line, he might be a bit better informed about this part of the Bill. In addition, the picket supervisor must be readily contactable at short notice and, worst of all,

“wear a badge, armband or other item that readily identifies the picket supervisor as such.”

What an absolute shame. It is a badge of shame that the Tory party is trying to attach to the trade union movement.

The Bill, the employment tribunal fees and the attack on the Human Rights Act are a combined attack on working people by a Government who have given up the mantle of one nation.