Orders of the Day — Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:45 pm on 17 November 1992.

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Photo of Angela Eagle Angela Eagle , Wallasey 7:45, 17 November 1992

I hope that I have made my point about the Government's different treatment of different parts of our society.

The extent of the Government's bias against trade unions and the hollow nature of their rhetoric about freedom is summed up by the fact that virtually the only right that the Government have given working people in the past 13 years is the right to take action against their trade unions. Trade unions exist to protect people, despite what Conservative myths suggest.

People want the right to be treated fairly at work. They want the right to employment protection and decent wages and conditions. Yet the Government have systematically stripped working people of all those rights, bleating that such basic minimum standards are a burden on business. We even learned at the weekend that the Government apparently believe that the laws contained in the draft EC directive on the minimum age of work which aim to prevent the exploitation of children are also a burden on business. Next the Government will tell us that preventing children from sweeping chimneys for a pittance is an unacceptable restriction on the employer's right to manage.

The Conservative party claims that removing minimum standards and "freeing the labour market" creates employment. That is why wages councils are to be abolished. Indeed, the neo-classical theory of economics worshipped by the Conservative party predicts that result. However, no practical experience bears it out.

When 16 to 20-year-olds were removed from the protection of wages councils, their pay fell, but the rate of unemployment in that age group rose, and it is now one in five. If the Government proceed to abolish the wages councils for the 2·7 million people who are currently covered by them—80 per cent. of whom are women and the most vulnerable section of the labour force—they will achieve the same magnificent result.

The argument that deregulating the labour market creates employment is not proven. The opposite appears to be true. Where deregulation has occurred in our labour market, there is higher unemployment. Indeed, we still have mass and rising unemployment, despite the much vaunted success of the Government's employment legislation.

Conservative Members talk a great deal of cant about the benefits of the Government's employment legislation. Indeed, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler), who is currently the chairman of the Conservative party, had the gall to claim in a debate on the 1990 Bill that the Government's employment legislation was the great success of their period in office. I congratulate the Conservative party on finding any success in the smoking ruin that is now Britain after 13 years of their mismanagement. However, like most of its propaganda, that assertion is not true.

Not only has the recession inhibited strike activity, but the declining level of strikes which the Government cite as proof positive of their success has been observed in almost all western countries in the same period. Those countries have achieved better results than Britain without compromising human rights, reneging on international agreements or condoning fear and victimisation in the workplace.

Another equally absurd claim was made by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) when he was Secretary of State for Employment. In the debate on the 1990 legislation, he said that the legislation would strengthen our economy. The accuracy and sagacity of that comment fair take the breath away.

It is about time that the Government got on with providing employment and decent standards of work for British people, and stopped pursuing their political vendettas and neo-classical economic obsessions. The sooner they do so the better.