Congress Delegates' question and answer session with the Prime Minister

Congress Delegates' question and answer session with the Prime Minister

Congress 2006. Tuesday, 12^th September. The Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, took questions from the floor of Congress after his speech.

The General Secretary: Tony, thank you very much indeed for that address to Congress and thank you, too, for agreeing to do this question and answer session with delegates. We asked unions to indicate what were some of the issues on which they would like the opportunity to pose questions and, as you might imagine, some of the issues which have been most prominent in our agenda this week are amongst the issues on which, I hope, we will be able to give delegates the opportunity to raise points with you; issues around privatisation, about employment rights, the pressures facing our manufacturing sector and so on.

What I intend to do, in terms of trying to handle this process, is to ask those union delegates who have said that they want to ask a question to come and make themselves available. I hope the photographers will co-operate and leave some space on the seats at the front so that the delegates asking questions can use the microphone in the aisle in front of me. I see one or two already available.

Before moving to delegates, I will start with UNISON, PCS and Prospect. I think the first question will come from Erica Petgrave from UNISON, and then we will hear from a number of colleagues on privatisation. Erica.

Erica Petgrave (UNISON): I am proud to be a member of operational police staff and a part of the public sector. Like many other UNISON members, my colleagues and I have been at the forefront of the Government's modernisation agenda, changing our roles and developing our skills to provide a better service to the public. When we were all making progress, benefiting from the investment and improving our public services, why now? Has the Government resorted to the old, fated Tory policies of introducing markets and competition into our public services, especially into our NHS?

Brendan Barber: Colleagues, I think it is probably easiest if I try and take two or three colleagues at a time with questions in the same area. Janice Godrich from PCS.

Janice Godrich (Public and Commercial Services Union): Thank you, Brendan. Prime Minister, the consequence of Gordon Brown's continuing job cuts amongst PCS members are being widely felt. The National Audit Office has recently reported that 21 million calls to contact centres in the Department of Work & Pensions, the department that I have worked in for 25 years, go unanswered, and your own Select Committee described this as a failure. New threats to jobs will damage enforcement of both the National Minimum Wage and health and safety laws, yet we saw the Guardian recently revealing that the Government is spending more than £2.2 billion a year on private sector consultants. How do you think a public servant feels working opposite a consultant who is being paid, on average, about six times as much for doing the same work, while services are deteriorating and they face more privatisation and the threat of compulsory redundancy?

Brendan Barber: I will take one more before asking Tony to respond on this area. Graham Henderson from Prospect.

Graham Henderson (Prospect): Prime Minister, why is the Government so wholeheartedly, almost dogmatically, committed to the privatisation of public services, contrary to public opinion and overwhelming experience? When will you ensure that your proposals are accompanied by a clear evidenced based business case to demonstrate how they will improve the specific public service, taking fuller account of the practical experience, expertise and knowledge of those expected to deliver them?

The Prime Minister: First of all in relation to the DWP and the job cuts, I understand the concerns and it is important that we discuss it with the trade unions and others, but the reason for making the changes was because of the reduced requirement because of changes in policy. I know there can be a lot of frustration, particularly when I talk to members of staff in Jobcentreplus, but it has to be set against the context of where we have massively increased the workforce in the public sector during the past few years. I say this to colleagues. When we go out and talk to the public and say 'We are privatising the National Health Service', there are a quarter-of-a-million more public sector workers working in the Health Service today than when we came to power. Pay rises used to be staged. They have not been. There have been real term rises of 25% - 30%. We have increased through Agenda For Change, negotiated with the trade unions, the opportunities for people to work in the Health Service and work in a way which gives them a greater chance of professional development. So it would be very curious, and I think most members of the public as opposed to those in our movement, and very odd when they see massive amounts of additional money going into public services, a quarter-of-a-million more people in the Health Service alone, 90,000 teaching assistants and 30,000 extra teachers, the thousands of extra police and so on, to say that we are anti public service.

However, I do say - one of the goods things about being in my position is that I can give people advice and whether they take it or not is up to them - that at the next election, believe me, the issue is not going to be whether we have put sufficient amounts of money or sufficiently supported public sector workers but have we managed to deliver the outputs for the money that the taxpayers feel that they have put in? My concern, very simply, is that without some of the changes that we have made, for example, opening-up to outside contractors to do things like cataracts, diagnostic services, in circumstances where, for ages and ages, people were waiting for months and months on waiting lists, we would never have got the waiting list falls that we have achieved. In the end, it has only been as a result not just of the money but reform so that today, as opposed to when we came to office, people who have heart disease wait on average a fraction of how long they used to wait ten years ago, and for cataract operations, which used to take two years, people wait for three months or less, and we have waiting lists at their lowest point since the Health Service began. So there are really difficult issues and we will try and sort them out with you.

Let us be absolutely clear about this. The National Health Service and our public services have got better. One reason for that is the money but the other reason is the reform. If we want to carry on with that investment and not return to the Tory days of under-investment, we have to keep the reform going at the same time, in my view.

Brendan Barber: Thank you, Tony.

The Prime Minister: That point did not meet with riotous applause.

Brendan Barber: I am sure it will come. (Laughter)

The Prime Minister: Next year.

Brendan Barber: One area in which there have been very particular concerns.... Don't put me off my stroke.

The Prime Minister: Do you know what he was going to start this session with -- I am going to tell this - but he was not brave enough? He was going to turn to me at the outset and say, 'What is it you will miss about the TUC?' Anyway.

Brendan Barber: I was going to save that up to the end and now you have ruined it.

The Prime Minister: Sorry. It gives me time to think, anyway.

Brendan Barber: Prisons and probation services are two parts of the public services where there are major concerns about privatisation and reforms are being pressed through. Colin Moses of the PFA and Judy McKnight of NAPO, I think, would like to raise some particular points on those areas.

Colin Moses (POA (UK) The Professional Trade Union for Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers): Prime Minister, I am pleased you made reference to privatisation because when you came to office in 1997 we only had four private prisons. We now have eleven. When you came to office we had 61,000 people in custody. We now have 79,000 -- that is a 30% increase - in prison for profit. In Opposition you promised us, the POA, the return of our trade union rights. You made reference in your opening speech to GCHQ. You have not returned our trade union rights so we, as prison officers, stand without human rights. So what we actually have is a larger prison population being kept there for profit - that is my question - why have you put so many people in prison for profit, and continue to do so? Before you leave, are you going to give us our trade union rights back and stop putting people in prison for profit?

Brendan Barber: Thank you, Colin. Judy.

Judy McKnight (NAPO. The Trade Union and Professional Association for Family Court and Probation Staff): Prime Minister, given that all the evidence today suggests that the Probation Service is most effective in reducing the offending and protecting the public when it works on an integrated basis, when it works in partnership with other key players. So can you explain why competition is being introduced to replace partnership and why no evidence-based business case has been produced for dismantling and fragmenting the Probation Service?

Brendan Barber: Thank you, Judy. Prime Minister, perhaps you might want to respond to those two points as they are in the same area.

The Prime Minister: Colin, I need to speak to you more about the trade union rights. My understanding is that of course trade unions are recognised in the prison system. There are private prisons which are also unionised, incidentally, but the reason why we have extra numbers of business places is perfectly simple. We have had to deal with rising levels of the prison population because of the sentences which are being passed. I am sure you did not mean to suggest this, but it would be a bit bizarre to suggest that the reason why we have extra numbers of people in prison because of private prisons. The reason we have that is because the public, generally, wants a tougher line, particularly with violent offenders in prison.

As to the second point which Judy was making, there will be, whether it is in relation to the Probation Service or any other part of the National Offender Management Service. Look, it is not a question again of privatising but a question of realising that sometimes there is an expertise out there, for example in the voluntary and charitable sector, that can sometimes be better able to deal with some of the issues.... It is important to keep an open mind on it because there are groups which work with prisoners who have had severe alcohol and drug abuse problems and can actually work better from the voluntary sector but within the system which exists.

The Probation Service has made great changes in the past few years, and I applaud the work which they are doing, but there are instances - this is right across the public service - when a more open attitude towards breaking down the barriers between the public, independent and voluntary sectors delivers a better service. If the Probation Service is confident of its ability, it should not be afraid of that process.

Brendan Barber: Thank you, Tony. I would like now to move to a different area. In your speech, Tony, you talked a lot about the huge issue of migration. We have put a statement to Congress this year which addresses that issue and you touched on that, but where we put a very strong emphasis on the case for much stronger protections, not only for migrant workers but for other workers, too. The abuses that people can suffer, people employed through agency arrangements, people in bogus self-employment relationships, are the most vulnerable to abuse. I think a couple of colleagues want to raise more detailed questions in those areas. We have John Thompson from UCATT and Sandra Walmsley from CWU.

John Thompson (Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians): Prime Minister, the construction industry is well-known for the problems of bogus self-employment. On many sites up to 60 per cent of site workers are self-employed. Many of them are mis-classified by their employers to avoid payments of employers' National Insurance contributions. Tax avoidance costs the Exchequer billions of pounds a year and has allowed employers to evade many of their responsibilities on employment rights.

Although our industry has a training levy, construction has the worst record for training than any other sector. Pension provision is virtually non-existent amongst the bogus self-employed. We have the worst accident record of industry, and migrant workers are engaged in this way because they have few rights, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. When is the Government going to end bogus self-employment in the construction industry?

Brendan Barber: Thanks, John. Sandra.

Sandra Walmsley (Communication Workers Union): The CWU is campaigning to secure justice for agency workers. In the absence of legal protection, agency members are suffering inferior terms and conditions and are excluded from a whole range of other employment rights. Other European countries show you can have a flexible workforce, strong social policies and high levels of employment where agency workers have been given equal rights from day one of their employment.

Can the Prime Minister confirm, therefore, when the Government will introduce legislation into the UK to guarantee equal rights for agency workers and support the implementation of the Temporary Agency Workers' Directive?

Brendan Barber: Perhaps you would like to take those last two points, Tony.

The Prime Minister: On the last point, it is still subject to negotiation, Sandra, within the European Union. It is true that we have been worried about certain aspects of the protections given because we do not want to put other people's jobs at risk and we have to be careful of that. The flexibility of our labour market, on the whole, has been a plus for this country, which is one of the reasons why we have such low levels of unemployment compared with other countries. Tomorrow, I think, we will probably see, for the first time in some months, a fall again in unemployment, which is very welcome indeed. That we, none the less, hope we can agree a directive, but it just has to be on the right terms.

The point that John has made on the construction industry and bogus self-employment, we are looking at this issue now and we will be making certain changes that will come in in the Construction Industry Scheme which should allow us to take care of some of the most acute problems. It is a real issue. It is a real issue of exploitation of people, and also it can often relate to health and safety issues as well. I hope, John, that we will be able to deal with at least some of the issues which you raise.

Brendan Barber: Thank you, Tony. The next area involves some of the pressures on the manufacturing sector. Again, you have talked about some of the issues arising from globalisation. Richard Clifton from Amicus and Simon Williams from Connect have questions to raise in those areas.

Richard Clifton (Amicus): Since you have been Prime Minister over one million jobs have been lost in manufacturing in the UK, a large proportion of those being from my sector, the motor industry. One of the reasons for this is because this country's employment legislation is far behind that of virtually every other European country. This means that it is easier, cheaper and quicker to sack UK employees and to close their plants. What are you and your Government going to do about this decline?

Brendan Barber: Next is Simon Williams from Connect.

Simon Williams (Connect): Thank you. Prime Minister, one of the consistent themes of your Government has been that UK workers have to compete in the global economy, but that can only happen if the competition is fair. What is the Government doing to ensure that employers here meet their obligations to tackle the UK skills gap and to ensure that workers throughout the global supply chain have decent working conditions and have the right to join and be represented by independent trade unions?

Brendan Barber: Perhaps you could take on more question in this area. I think Mick Ryan from the GMB has a question in this area.

Mick Ryan (GMB): Prime Minister, you believe in fairness. How do you equate this with issues such as Thames Water, which has served drought orders on their customers whilst increasing their bills by 24% over five years, their directors have received a 40% pay increase since 1997, they have failed to meet their leakage targets and the regulator has told them to invest another £150 million in the water infrastructure? Their present owners, RWE, a Germany company, paid £4 billion for Thames only three years ago, and now want to sell it for a minimum of £7 billion, a small £3 billion profit. To ensure they achieve this, they have announced 700 job losses. Do you think that these excess profits and pay are fair to consumers, with higher bills, and to workers who will lose their jobs? Is this in line with your view of fairness? I do have a vested interested. I spent 35 years in the industry as a worker, now a pensioner. Thank you.

The Prime Minister: Mick, I understand the concerns. The trouble is that they are a private company today and that is the issue and the problem. So it is not a question of whether I think it is fair. The question is what we can do about it. In the end, they need to realise that if they want to maintain customer confidence then fairness in the way that they treat their employees is one part of that.

As to the point which you made, Simon, on the skills gap and also on manufacturing, this is the issue, really. I know there is a very common view that it is because our employment legislation is less strong than that of other European countries and that is why they make redundancies here. Actually, manufacturing jobs have been falling right across the western world, and it is for a very simple reason. As technology changes, as working processes change and as the market becomes incredibly competitive with competition from emerging economies, such as China and India, but also economies such as Vietnam today, which are huge growth areas then, necessarily, I think we will find, that jobs are tougher in the manufacturing sector. The only thing we can do, if we are honest about it, because you cannot by legislation prevent these changes in the global market, is (i) to continue to run a stable economy, which we are doing, and (ii) to invest in skills, science and technology, which we are also doing.

There no doubt are many complaints about what the Government has or has not done, but if you look at our investment in skills, not just the union learning reps but actually investment in skills, we have seen a massive up-skilling of the UK workforce just over the past few years.

Before I came on to the platform there was talk from one of the delegates - I think it was from Tom of Amicus - about apprenticeships. We have trebled the number of apprenticeships over the past few years. We are trebling the funding of British science. There is a massive amount going into new technology, but in the end the only way that we can make our manufacturing industry strong is to make it compete not on the basis of low wages but on the basis of high skills. That is the only honest answer. There is no one who can promise, in today's world, that jobs are not going to change in manufacturing because of the forces of globalisation.

Brendan Barber: Thank you, Tony. An issue which has been hugely important on our agenda in the last couple of years is that of pensions. I think Peter Hughes from Community wanted to raise a question on that issue. Peter.

Peter Hughes (Community): The reason why I am asking this question, Prime Minister, is that after 32 years in Allied Steel & Wire, I lost my job and I lost my pension. My question to you concerns the Financial Assistance Scheme. Even after its extension it will not provide me and tens of thousands of other people similarly affected with a pension. When will the Government restore confidence in the UK pensions system and show that it is addressing the concerns of ordinary British people in addressing this scandal?

Brendan Barber: Thank you, Peter. Would you like to respond to that issue on pensions, Prime Minister?

The Prime Minister: I can. As you know, the Financial Assistance Scheme was introduced by this Government for the first time, initially, with a budget of £400 million, and we then increased it in May to £2.3 billion. That has allowed us to go back now and we will pay 65% or 80% of pensions to people who have lost their pension entitlement because their pension schemes have been wound-up and going back to the last 15 years of their employment.

Truthfully, I am afraid, we cannot do everything for everybody, but it is an over-£2 billion scheme, and it was introduced by the Government. It would not have been introduced by a Tory government. The payments to ASW, in particular, will be made over the coming period of time. We will not be able to help everybody, but there will be substantial numbers of people, and in times to come thousands of people who will benefit from that scheme introduced by us.

Brendan Barber: Thank you, Tony. I think we only have time for one more block of questions now, and they are in the area of education and work with young people. From the NUT, we will hear from Judy Moorhouse; Sam Allen from UCU and Jeff Broome from USDAW, all of whom, potentially, have questions in those areas.

Judy Moorhouse (National Union of Teachers): Good afternoon, Prime Minister. Today the OECD published figures which show a shocking disparity between average class sizes in the public and private sectors in the UK compared to other countries. Previous OECD evidence has shown that education systems with different types of school lead to educational inequality and segregation. When drafting the Education & Inspections Bill why did the Government ignore the OECD evidence? When will the Government act to achieve its target of raising the average public investment per pupil to today's private school levels?

Brendan Barber: Thank you, Judy. Sam Allen from UCU.

Sam Allen (UCU): Prime Minister, my question is very simple. When you came into power you used the words 'Education, education, education'. As a lecture in a further education college I was so enthusiastic and I was waiting for these to be implemented in terms of practicality and public funding. Despite the increasing funding that we have been told about by Ministers into education, as a particular sector of education, which is further education, the funding which has shown through, in terms of conditions of service, in terms of pay and the sort of situations that colleagues in our sectors are actually going through.

I know that you are going to leave in 12 months' time, but is there anything you can do to actually investigate this issue and to properly fund the further education sector? I am not saying that that should be at the expense of any other sector of education, but this sector needs more input. This sector has been so neglected. The morale is very low and the number of people who are losing their jobs, including myself, who are facing possible redundancy soon, is just not acceptable. Thanks, Prime Minister.

Brendan Barber: Jeff Broome.

Jeff Broome (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers): Prime Minister, we were delighted that you listened to USDAW members and working people and decided not to extend Sunday trading hours. Thank you.

Young people are the future of our country, and USDAW is currently involved in a campaign to organise young workers to ensure they join our union and get the support and protection they need at work. What can the Labour Government do to support young workers at work?

The Prime Minister: First of all, in relation to Sam, I think it is true that we need to make a greater commitment to the further education sector in the years to come, because it can often be the poor relation between the schools and the universities. We do actually have in the Spending Review an increase in the funding but I also think that there is a genuine issue because the further education system does so much good in helping people at the workplace as well as people who leave school. I hope, very much, that the combination of the Tomlinson Report on Vocational Training in Schools and also the changes we are making in further education with the extra money will make a difference to people like yourself, Sam, who do a great job in the further education sector.

What is quite important is that occasionally we look back on what we have been able to achieve in this period of time. If you go into my consistency, and I suspect in any number of constituencies anywhere in the country, and into your local schools, you will see the investment and the extra money in education. It is there. It is there in the computers, in the extra staff and in the new school buildings. Over the next eight or nine years, literally, every single school in this country will either be rebuilt or refurbished. That is a Labour Government delivering for people in this country. It will not happen without it. I know there are lots of issues to do with the changes we are making in schools, but occasionally, as I say, we should recognise that money has gone in and, not only that, in primary school results, GCSE results, A Level results and Key Stage 4, this country is performing better than it has ever performed before, and that is a great tribute to the pupils, their parents and teachers in our schools. I think it is important to balance that out.

I also happen to believe, however, that, as with the Health Service, we need change there as well. When specialist schools first began people said, 'This is going to introduce elitism'. It did not happen. The trust schools will be the same. There are very strong rules on selection. City academies have shown very, very good results. They have. Well, I am afraid that the proof of it is that parents are wanting to send there children to them and, in the end, that is not a bad test. I am sorry if we disagree on it, but I believe that.

A speaker(From the floor): We've no control. It's an experiment.

The Prime Minister: You have a very good control on the experiments, if you really want to know and that, in the end, is the parents. You have to give a certain amount of trust to parents as to where they want to send their kids to school.

Anyway, I can see that we are not going to reach an immediate consensus on that one.

Let me go back to the point I do make and reach a consensus on this point at least, I hope. We do not want to see a return to academic selection, but we do want to see increased investment in our schools. Let me tell you that the only government which would deliver that investment is a Labour government and that has been proved over the past few years.

That brings me to Jeff's point, which is in relation to young workers in particular. This, again, is where the trade union movement has a tremendous role to play. It does have a tremendous role to play, not just in vocational schooling, which needs to be changed. I think we, as a Government, have had a great emphasis on academic education but we need to put alongside that a sufficient emphasis on vocational skills, and that is the next challenge for the next decade. In addition to that, not just in further education but also in making sure that there are great connections between the world of work and what kids are being taught at school. There is absolutely no point in sending our kids to school unless they are going to come out of it with qualifications which mean that employers want to employ them. This is an area where we, the TUC, employers and Government, have to work very closely together.

Jeff did mention the point about the Sunday trading laws, and our decision not to extend them over the Christmas break. I said right at the very outset that sometimes in the small decisions you see what a difference a Labour government makes. Again, that is something which would not have been done by a Conservative government but it was done by a Labour government.

Brendan Barber: Colleagues, I am sorry that it has not been possible to get everyone in. We got the great majority of those in who indicated they wanted to speak. I think we have to draw this session now to a close.