Trade Union Bill — House of Lords, 2016-01-11
Topic: Mixed Topics
Spencer Livermore (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I speak for the first time in your Lordships’ House, and I do so with a great sense of humility and no little trepidation. I am acutely aware of the experience, expertise and wisdom that reside on all sides of this House, and I am genuinely grateful for the warm and generous welcome that I have received. I thank the doorkeepers and the staff and officers of this House for their kindness to my family on the day of my introduction, and for their continuing help to me since I am also deeply grateful to those noble Lords who did me the honour of introducing me: my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton and my noble friend Lady Nye. I particularly thank my noble friend Lady Nye for her wise and patient advice as I acclimatised to your Lordships’ House. It is said that when Harold Wilson resigned from the Labour Government together with Aneurin Bevan in 1951, he was called "Nye’s little dog". At times I felt a little like that myself as I followed obediently behind the noble Baroness Improving democracy in the workplace is said to be a key objective of this Bill. Democracy has played an important part in my own career, as I have worked on four general election campaigns over the past 18 years. Over that time, all political parties have sought to increase engagement and participation in the democratic process. As technology has evolved, the challenge of modernising our democracy has become ever more pressing, and it is encouraging that thousands of organisations in the private sector, from the Federation of Small Businesses to the Royal College of Nursing, from HSBC to the National Trust, have risen to this challenge and now use electronic voting in their own elections and consultations. It therefore seems a curious anomaly that this Bill should leave trade unions as the only organisations in Britain prohibited from harnessing technology to modernise their own democratic procedures. Modernisation is vital, and I hope that in the passage of the Bill that anomaly can be rectified. I hope, too, that in time we can find new ways to use technology in general elections to engage a whole new generation of voters At their best, trade unions have been not just the voice of working people but the route for many to a better life, opening up opportunities that otherwise would not exist. From their earliest origins in co-operative and friendly societies to establishing working men’s libraries, through to funding university scholarships, trade unions fought not only for collective solidarity but for individual self-improvement. Arguably, too much of that early tradition has been lost, and a key test for the Bill is whether it closes down opportunities for working people or enables trade unions to once again fulfil their historic function in breaking down barriers to aspiration. The latter is much needed. As the Prime Minister said last week: "We live in a country where too many people are stopped from reaching their potential because of their background" In Britain today, a boy born into a middle-class family is 15 times more likely to be middle-class himself than a boy born into a working-class family. I know that to be true. When I was 16, a careers teacher came to visit my school. Seeing each of us in turn, she sat me down in the classroom and asked what my next steps might be. I said that after my A-levels I wanted to go on to university to study economics. "Oh no," came her reply, "university isn’t for pupils from this school". I express gratitude today not only to my family for their support and encouragement but to that careers teacher too; I found her to be a powerful source of motivation as I sought to prove her wrong. I was very proud to go on from school to university, but I remain angry that I was the only one in my school year to have done so Our country cannot afford to limit opportunities, shrink horizons, and waste talent like that. However, I do not believe that tackling this lack of social mobility and ensuring everyone can reach their full potential can be achieved by government alone. For 10 years I worked in the Treasury as special adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the last Labour Government. Improving life chances was at the heart of what we sought to achieve. We took action on employment and on child poverty, and the life chances of the poorest improved dramatically. However, reflecting on that time in government, it is clear to me that for those who are not poor, those who are closer to the middle, improving life chances is about more than a poverty of income—it is about a poverty of aspiration. For these children, too often it is not a lack of means but a lack of dreams. Social mobility must of course be built on a foundation of income and employment, but I know from my own experience that it also requires education, enterprise and ambition Since leaving government I have worked in the private sector, and have greatly enjoyed contributing to building a successful strategy business. I have learnt much from this time but in particular I have learnt that business has an incredibly important role to play as a powerful engine of social mobility, and within businesses modern trade unions have a crucial play to play, too, in developing new skills, raising ambitions, and increasing personal prosperity as a result. Initiatives such as the Union Learning Fund were great innovations. Now, one of the greatest services modern trade unions could offer 21st-century workers would be bargaining for skills, which benefits both the company and the individual worker by promoting their progression in the workplace. I have taken Rotherhithe, in the London Borough of Southwark, as the geographic part of my title, where I have lived for many years. Rotherhithe has a proud industrial history, from building ships for the Royal Navy in the 1650s to being at the heart of London’s Docklands until the 1960s. Running through that industrial history is a strong heritage of internationalism, and perhaps our proudest claim is that Rotherhithe is where the "Mayflower" first sailed from on its journey to the New World in 1620. Those on board helped, by imagining a greater destiny for themselves, to found the ideals that created the American Dream, that prosperity would come from hard work, and that if you were willing to work hard you could make a better life for yourself and your family In 1774, the Royal Governor of Virginia said that Americans, "forever imagine the lands further off are still better than those upon which they are already settled" That instinct to continually search for a better life, that expansive belief in possibility, is to be admired. It was a gift to America from Britain. It is a British belief, a British value, but one which we must ensure reaches every community in our land. This is a task in which this House has an important role to play, and to which I commit myself to playing my part in the years ahead.