‘Change must mean change’

Addressing the TUC, the first prime minister to do so in 15 years, Sir Keir Starmer delivered a fairly short speech outlining policies centring around the need for economic growth. He then answered delegates’ questions.  

Early in his speech he told conference that work was already underway to deliver on Labour’s New Deal for Working People, which he described as the “the biggest levelling up of workers’ rights in a generation.

“This government is committed to driving up living standards, improving productivity and working in partnership with workers.”

He continued, “As part of that bill, we will repeal the 2016 Trade Union Act, we will get rid of minimum service level legislation, end the cheap and vindictive attacks on this movement and turn the page on politics as noisy performance – once and for all.”

‘Tinkering round edges not enough’

Responding to the prime minister’s speech, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said, “It’s clear that Britain is better under a Labour government, however change must mean change. Tinkering around the edges is not enough.

“Labour must rule out austerity mark two and ensure we address the crisis in our crumbling public services and the lack of investment in British industry.

Question time

Unite EC member David Agbley, is an NHS clinical scientist working. On behalf of Unite he asked the prime minister the following question,

“Rates of investment in British industry are the lowest in the G7 and other countries have much more money set aside for future investments.

“If we don’t start investing much more in industry now, how can we ensure Britain gets the good quality jobs we need workers to transition into?”

Keir Starmer thanked David for his excellent question and replied, “That has been one of the major problems of the last 14 years that we haven’t had the right level of investment for businesses in which your members work and it matters hugely.

“Investors tell me it’s because of the conditions, the chaos, and this all matters. What is needed is stability and clarity – then we’ll get the growth in which is so important. Yes we want economic growth, your members want economic growth, we want wages to go up across the whole country.

“I don’t want growth and redistribution only to be in certain parts of the country, we have to have the determination to bring investment across all parts of our country. That’s why the industrial strategy is so important to make sure we get our investment working.”

David told UNITElive afterwards that he thought Sir Keir’s answer was alright but nowhere near far reaching enough to achieve what his Unite members were looking for.

He said, “My expectations were for Labour to invest more resources into new jobs, green jobs. We need to put in place new infrastructure. That’s the only way we’ll get this growth.

“All I heard was the same old thing – something new has to happen and there was nothing new here. Yes blame the Tories, but move on and not at the expense of workers.”

By Amanda Campbell

Pics by Mark Thomas