Trade Union Funding

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Wednesday 29th February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on obtaining the debate. I am a member of Prospect trade union, and it does not give me any money for political campaigning, but I am publishing a pamphlet with Demos in the next couple of weeks, on relations between the unions and the Conservative party, and am deeply interested in the issue.

I want to make three points. First, I believe that it is wrong to lump all trade unions together. Secondly, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran) said, the Conservative party has a long history of co-operation with unions, on which we should build. Thirdly, we should do more to support the moderate majority of trade union members, most of whom are not political activists.

It is true that some trade unions get subsidies from the Government, as do banks. Yet many unions are, we should acknowledge, capitalist institutions, offering services that are intended directly to replace state provision, such as private health care. The market comparison website privatemedicalinsurance.co.uk shows that the Labour-affiliated union Unison has recently encouraged its members to join private health care schemes such as Medicash.

There are other examples. In 2001, The Daily Telegraph reported that 3.5 million trade unionists—more than half the TUC membership—now have some form of private health cover. That was 10 years ago. Since then the trade union movement has considerably professionalised and strengthened its private health care offer and other services, such as legal insurance. I suggest to my hon. Friends that we need to look at the reality of trade unions, not just the rhetoric of extreme militants.

Unions are still the largest membership associations in Britain. They are hugely more popular in membership terms than all the political parties combined.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making important points. The Conservative party has had a positive relationship with the trade unions, but is not transparency of funding and understanding what trade unions do the most important thing?

[Robert Halfon]

Yes, I accept exactly what my hon. Friend says; I am all in favour of transparency. However, TUC membership now stands at 58 unions, representing 6.5 million people—more than the population of Scotland. Of those 58 unions, just 15 are affiliated to Labour, leaving 43 that are non-affiliated. In addition, there are huge numbers of small staff associations. My point is that those 6.5 million are a complex network of people, and the vast majority of them will be moderate Britons, in all sectors of the economy, from all walks of life, and not militant activists.

I am proud that our party has a long history of co-operation with the trade unions, beginning in 1867, before the Labour party even existed. It was the Conservative Prime Minister the Earl of Derby who first sought to legalise trade unions in 1867. He said in the House of Lords at the time that

“the voices of Manchester, of Birmingham, of Leeds, and of all the other important centres of manufacturing industry were absolutely unheard.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 July 1867; Vol. 188, c. 1775.]

He praised a trade union march in London, insisting to a hostile Liberal Opposition that the process was entirely legal.

I say these things not because I am not a proud Conservative: I come from the Thatcherite wing of the party, but even Mrs Thatcher was an active trade unionist. In 1950, she was elected president of the Dartford branch of one of the first organisations that she ever joined, the Conservative Trade Unionists. One of her first engagements as Leader of the Opposition was to address the CTU. She told them in 1975—it is well worth hearing this quotation—that

“the law should not only permit, but…it should assist, the trades unions to carry out their legitimate function of protecting their members.”

We all remember Mrs Thatcher for the wars against Arthur Scargill and so on, but she was supportive of trade union members and grass roots, although she was against militants. I am a firm Thatcherite on trade union reform.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

To add to my hon. Friend’s comments about Mrs Thatcher, I remember that Norman Tebbit was very much a trade unionist within the aircraft industry and, indeed, led strikes.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend proves my point. In 1979, during the general election, trade union members held a mass rally at Wembley stadium under the banner “Trade unions for a Conservative victory”. That is the kind of future that I hope our Government will aspire to.

My conclusion is that we need to support the moderate majority of trade union members, most of whom are not political activists. In politics, language is everything. We should not be afraid to support grass-roots trade union members, to encourage people to join trade unions and—dare I say it?—to have, perhaps, the occasional beer and sandwich. We often discuss facility time, and, yes, we need to crack down where it is abused and say that it should not be used for party political activity. Nevertheless, some facility time is good. A local employer in my constituency, the bus company Arriva, says that facility time is incredibly beneficial. The politically neutral First Division Association, which has 20,000 members, uses facility time to relocate the families of civil servants who are serving overseas. While we crack down on the abuses, we should recognise that not all facility time is bad.

Whatever reform is pursued, our focus must be on what is right for union members. It may be worth returning to the original opt-in position for political levies, which was the status quo until 1945.

Finally, I will quote Richard Balfe, the former Labour MEP who came over to the Conservatives. He said:

“British politics has changed enormously in recent years. Labour has become a rich persons’ party and the Conservatives are reaching out to groups that in the past would not have been natural allies. We do not expect to convert the leadership of the trade union movement, but we do offer respect for the achievements of the movement and the possibility of a mutually beneficial dialogue.”

I say to the Government and my hon. Friends that, despite the rhetoric, let us not walk into the elephant trap set for us by Len McCluskey, Bob Crow and others.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order.