UK Parliament / Open data

Public Bodies Bill [Lords]

Proceeding contribution from John McDonnell (Labour) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 12 July 2011. It occurred during Debate on bills on Public Bodies Bill [Lords].
I can confirm that. Redundancies are taking place, and there is near chaos in some organisations, not only because of jobs being lost and redundancies being forced on people, but in the organisation of the services that they deliver. A number of staff are worried about the impact that the proposals will have on the users of their services. I refer in particular to those who manage the independent living fund and the 300 workers involved on the Youth Justice Board, whose jobs are likely to go. Morale is understandably at rock bottom in those services, so the important thing is consultation. However, I see that consultation with staff unions is not even listed in the Bill. Also, there is an agreement stemming from the last Government—an agreement that I thought this Government had signed up to—on TUPE. The Cabinet Office statement of protocols adopted by the last Government and inherited by this Government, which I thought this Government had also signed up to, states that where TUPE does not apply—for example, in the transfer of staff into the public sector, which includes most of the bodies in this Bill—an explicit reference should be added to the Bill. That is the agreement that was signed up to, but all that this Bill contains is a reference in clause 24 to transferring people on conditions similar to TUPE. The legal advice provided to the union is blindingly obvious: conditions that are similar to TUPE are not TUPE. Therefore, a whole range of conditions of service and protections that staff now enjoy will be put at risk. I believe that this is an act of bad faith on the part of the Government. The least that they could do now is add TUPE to the Bill. It was included by the last Government in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, and by this Government in the Localism Bill. In that way, staff gained some security for their futures. Let me conclude. There is a view in many of those bodies that there is near chaos when it comes to what the future will hold for the staff and what the implications for delivering the service will be.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
531 c257-8 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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