Superannuation Bill

Much has been said about the need for the unions to negotiate. Let me be clear about the unions' position, as a number of general secretaries are in the building today. The POA makes it clear in its statement that it has rejected the Government's final offer, but it has left the door open for further dialogue with the Government, which must be meaningful with all the Council of Civil Service Unions present and with no exclusions. Mark Serwotka of the Public and Commercial Services Union has written to the Government and briefed other MPs to the effect that he is keen to re-enter talks, but stresses again that they must be meaningful. The PCS believes it has worked hard to reach a settlement. Let me quote Mark Serwotka:"““From the outset PCS has worked hard to come to a fair deal. We cannot accept the current offer and are calling for further talks. If those talks do not take place we will continue to oppose the Bill in Parliament and will take legal action when appropriate as we have successfully done in the past.””" The two unions representing the vast bulk of the civil service members who will be affected by the Bill are willing to negotiate. The problem seems to be not the Minister's willingness to negotiate, but the Treasury envelope within which he is negotiating. If that is the problem, I suggest that the Treasury gets directly involved in these negotiations as well, so that it can see that its attempt to gain a short-term saving will have a long-term cost to the Government. That might help to get some productive negotiations going. By the time the Bill comes back from the other place, we might have a settlement across all the unions, but any attempt to try to divide the unions again will, I believe, be counter-productive. We now need to create a climate of industrial relations that will enable these negotiations to take place successfully for all the unions, not just for a small minority. Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time. The House divided: Ayes 309, Noes 242.