I would like to declare that I am not a member of Unite or the GMB trade union. When I was elected, I thought I had left the union meetings behind on the railways, but no: today, it feels like I am gate-crashing a 1970s union meeting in the House of Commons, so socialism is definitely alive and well in today’s Labour party.
Here we are again. This is another example of the Labour party, rather than addressing the issues of the day, just wanting to stay wedded to the European Union. The EU position on employment rights is worse than
the UK’s by a country mile, yet Labour wants us to be bound to EU standards. Maternity leave is 52 weeks in the UK, compared with just 14 in the EU. Annual leave is 28 days in the UK, compared with just 20 in the EU—I could go on.
We should ask ourselves why the Labour party has really brought this motion before the House today. I think it is because its union paymasters are pulling the strings. The GMB union sent me a briefing last night, so I thought I would do some research into its interest in this debate. That union has filled Labour MPs’ pockets with £360,000 during this Parliament alone, and Unite the union has put £578,000 into the pockets of 61 Labour MPs. These are the unions supposedly fighting for rights, when really all they are doing is funding the Labour party to suppress good, decent, hard-working people from choosing how much they work, earn and save with its proposed 32-hour working week.
This Conservative Government have almost doubled the personal income tax allowance, so a person can earn £12,500 before paying any tax. We have banned exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts. We now have shared parental leave, and we pay to give working parents that flexibility, too. These are signs not of a Government that want to reduce employment rights, but of one who will continue to strengthen them, despite the adversity of the Opposition.
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