Trade Unions — House of Lords, 2015-11-19
Topic: Mixed Topics
Rupert Ponsonby (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, perhaps I may start by congratulating my noble friend on a fine maiden performance; we look forward to many more. Taking over the constituency of South Leicestershire, formerly Blaby, in 1992, my noble friend had a rather large pair of boots to fill. He had had a distinguished career in the Coldstream Guards and the Special Forces. He then moved to the world of big business, only to volunteer to return to the colours for the first Gulf War, so he was the natural choice for the Prime Minister to ask to go to the Ministry of Defence, after service as Opposition Deputy Chief Whip, on the formation of a new Government in 2010, as Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Welfare and Veterans. Subsequently, of course, he became a Minister of State and served both in the MoD and, as he said, at the Northern Ireland Office. We all look forward to his future contributions in your Lordships’ House—as we do to those of the noble Baroness, Lady Burt I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, for bringing this debate on this very important subject. I might start by saying that, when I was at Defra, I enjoyed a highly constructive relationship with the trade unions, especially—and I was going to say "most strikingly", but perhaps "most significantly" would be a better phrase—in the case of making amendments to the Dangerous Dogs Act to improve the level of protection for postal workers and many other workers going about their jobs every day. The Communication Workers Union was extremely helpful—an ally, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Monks—as was Royal Mail. Together we improved the situation quite markedly, and I thank them for that Trade unions have done and continue to do brilliant work for their Members—the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, explained some of that—and long may that work continue. However, cases continue to occur where there is abuse of the system and it is reasonable to think about making changes to the law. I am aware that we will get into that in detail in your Lordships’ House over the next few weeks so, there being limited time, I shall confine myself to a few general points today First, I am concerned about the effects on inoffensive and uninvolved members of the public, whose efforts to get to and from work or education become severely hampered by industrial action. The public sector strikes in 2011 closed 62% of England’s schools, while the NHS cancelled tens of thousands of operations, yet the turnout for both the ATL teachers’ union ballot and for Unison’s was only about 25%. Does my noble friend the Minister think that that is fair or right? I do not think that many people would disagree with me in thinking that it is not. Indeed, the majority has indicated in polls that it strongly agrees that strike action should be undertaken only as the last resort My second point is that I am concerned that the number of days lost to industrial action in the public sector has doubled over 15 years, whereas in the private sector it has halved. There is a need to tackle that Thirdly, it must be unreasonable that industrial action can take place based on a mandate that is, for example, more than a year old. The NUT strike in 2014 led to the full or part closure of almost 1,500 educational establishments across England on a mandate almost two years old, on which there was an alleged voting turnout of just 27%. This surely has to change Those are some of the issues that the Bill that we are about to get into debating seeks to tackle. Other matters include bullying and harassment, check-off and transparency about facility time. The public gave the Government a mandate at the general election, and the public are looking to the Government to fulfil it.