Trade Union Officials (Refund of Pay to Employers)

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Is this in order?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Stop the clock. The right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) should behave not like a trainee rabble-rouser but rather like the elder statesman that at his best he can be.

[Jesse Norman]

Astonishingly, there is no management report in Unite’s annual return, no historical comparison of income and expenditure, no discussion of the year’s activities, no analysis of the current environment or future prospects, no biographies of senior officials and not even any photographs. The impression given by that annual return is one of contempt for the union’s membership. Members should ask themselves what would be required if Unite were a charity like, to choose an example at random, the Sheffield Hospitals Charity. Its annual report and accounts is a model of detailed and clear presentation, full of information about the organisation, its people and its work. There is a very clear sense of public commitment and purpose. Its page on the Charity Commission’s website is packed with accessible information and graphics, but there is nothing especially unusual about that report and accounts or that disclosure. It is simply that the standards for public disclosure and the standards of treatment for donors are much higher for charities than for unions.

The Sheffield Hospitals Charity had income last year of just £2 million; Unite is 70 times larger. It is Britain’s biggest union, with more than 1.5 million members, and wields enormous political power. If this is how it treats its membership and the taxpayer, the case for greater union accountability and for more transparent regulation could hardly be clearer. I commend the Bill to the House.