Speech to Congress 2008 by Diane Hayter, Sororal delegate from the Labour Party

Speech to Congress 2008 by Diane Hayter, Sororal delegate from the Labour Party

TUC Congress, Brighton, Wednesday 10 September 2008

Mr President, Sisters and Brothers.

Many of you - those of grey hair - will know of my deep roots in trade unionism: My career began in the union movement, firstly (nearly 40 years ago) with the GMB, then helping set up the ETUC in Brussels, and thence TUAC - the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD. Today I remain as committed to improving the rights of union members as I did in those early years.

I have also written about unions, both about some of their leading lights forming the PLP in 1906, and also of their role, as I see it, in saving the Labour Party in the 1980s, when the unions (decisively) chose not to throw their lot in with the nascent SDP.

Then seizing the party by the scruff of the neck, to return it to electability, in the interests of working people. And, under the tutelage of Charlie Turnock of the RMT, union members of the NEC set about weeding out Militant.

Without such help in sorting out a somewhat dysfunctional NEC, Neil Kinnock would have been hard pressed to return the party into an organisation dedicated to the concerns of working people and to winning voters' confidence.

The unions had created the Labour Party in 1900 to ensure the voice of the people in parliament; in the 1980s, they knew that, if it failed in that, it would be impotent to safeguard their members.

Today, as I sit at the NEC (now far from dysfunctional!), I see around the table the heirs and successors of those early pioneers who created the party in 1900.

The names of your unions might (sadly, to my historian's mind) have changed, but your histories have not disappeared.

In 1906, when 29 trade unionists were elected to parliament and formed the PLP, their union names sung out the trades they represented: Iron and Steel, engineers, gas workers, spinners, weavers, railway servants, shop assistants, warehousemen, clerks, shipwrights, carpenters, joiners, smelters.

In 2006, when we celebrated the centenary of the PLP, the party acknowledged the proud role of unions in transforming Britain's political landscape. It is not surprising that the rising stars of the parliamentary party came from the unions: it was in the unions they served their apprenticeship in organising, representing others, problem solving, reading, and policy making.

And over the past year, as Chair, I have had good reason to appreciate the support of affiliated unions, as we've poached one of your best (Ray Collins) as our General Secretary, I've been superbly supported by Cath Speight of Amicus/Unite as Vice Chair,

we have leant on your wisdom and understanding in addressing our indebtedness,

and relied on your members and activists in local and by-election challenges.

In return, we have fashioned between us at the National Policy Forum a programme of action for the years ahead to bring security and prosperity to working people and their families, to the retired, the disabled, to vulnerable consumers and to those at the margins of society who lack the voice to protect their own rights and living standards.

The Policy Forum represented a real dialogue between government and the unions, and the outcome is testimony to its success.

Of course, we face large challenges if we are to implement these plans. We have to win back seats on local government, where so many public services are delivered.

We must win seats in the European elections in June, to assure a strong voice in the European Parliament.

In November we will adopt - alongside sister parties from all 27 member states - a manifesto for the European elections. This will build on EU successes in the creation of jobs, security at work, proper protections and rights for all.

But the Manifesto must also attract wavering voters, the unorganised, the insecure, those afraid of change and diversity. It must demonstrate that their concerns are our concerns.

The EU council is dominated by the Right, with precious few socialists in government.

This makes it vital to have a strong voice in the European Parliament to counter a right wing world view.

So we need to increase the number of Labour MEPs, and thus the size of the socialist bloc in Strasbourg. We will be calling on your help again - for the sake of union members - to ensure that, from 2009 to 2014, we can have a say in the EU through its parliamentary voice. We also have parliamentary and local government seats to win.

Another advantage of having started in the union so long ago, is that a fellow researcher - though at the ETU - was John Spellar, who remains an assiduous reader of newspapers, and has just shown me one I'd missed.

This summaries a poll showing the Opposition's lead over the government settling at 14% - down on the 20% advantage it had held, but still substantial. But that cutting is from 1990. It was Labour in opposition with an apparent commanding lead.

And in 1992, that Opposition lost. Not all of you remember that. And also, for the younger amongst you, there is little memory of the deprivations experienced under the Conservatives, with public services starved of funds, staff and support.

In 1990, £1,000 million worth of repairs were needed in London schools alone. I remember schools with leaking roofs, outside loos, and large class sizes. Patients were treated in hospitals built in the 19^th century, mal-equipped, and with wards closed or moth-balled. And homelessness - 65,000 single homeless in our capital city, and a freeze on council building.

Above all, I recall that constant worry about whether our children would have a job, as a cohort of school leavers faced a very bleak future. In 1990, 1 in 5 in Hackney and Haringey was out of work. Around Kings Cross, the figure was one third.

This was not just a Labour issue. Who can forget the damning words of the churches' Faith in the City report? It described a dispiriting scene, damaged by crime, vandalism and drugs, with many living at subsistence level, lacking opportunities for self-help or intervention, effectively : 'separate territories outside the mainstream of our social and economic life'. The Report condemned Thatcherite indifference and claimed that:

'Too much emphasis is being given to individualism and not enough to collective obligation'.

It went on: 'It is the poor who have borne the brunt .. both the unemployed and the working poor. Yet it is the poor who are seen by some as 'social security scroungers', or a burden on the country ... This is a cruel example of blaming the victim'.

2009 will witness the centenary of the Beatrice Webb Minority Report on the Poor Law.

What we now take for granted was revolutionary in 1909. The workhouse and outdoor relief were still around, with a culture of blaming the workless for their poverty. Beatrice Webb said no - Poverty was in the system, not the individual. And it was the job of government to reform that system, to ensure work was available, and to guarantee an income and care for those who couldn't work.

This was not a lesson heeded by the Conservatives. It has been Labour which held to Beatrice Webb's beliefs in preventing and alleviating poverty. And it has been Labour which set its sights on full employment.

David Cameron? We know he would

• Cut inheritance tax for the wealthiest - diverting £1 billion to the richest 3,000
• Cut Sure Start and slice £4.5 billion from Labour's school building plans
• Withdraw Britain from the European Social Chapter, reducing the rights of workers
• Reverse the agreement for evening and weekend GP opening hours
• Scrap patient rights, including the guarantee that all suspected cancer patients are seen by a specialist within two weeks of GP referral

It is not for my generation that Labour seeks a continuation in office. It is for our children and grandchildren that we have an obligation to ensure that the next decade offers as many improvements to our social, economic and environmental fabric as the last decade has wrought.

Together, with unity of purpose and unity of action, this is the inheritance we can pass on to our successors.