PM preparing for war with union leaders ahead of TUC conference

Published

9 months ago

September 7, 2024

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Union leaders will this week go to war with Sir Keir Starmer on wages, winter fuel payments and workers’ rights.

As the first TUC conference under a Labour government for 15 years opens in Brighton, the prime minister faces a massive list of demands.

Ahead of the conference, the TUC is claiming workers were “cheated” out of £2bn of holiday pay last year under the Conservatives.

“The Conservative government sat back and let bad employers cheat their staff out of their basic workplace rights,” said general secretary Paul Nowak.

“Tory ministers were more concerned about stopping people getting what they were due by introducing anti-union measures, than funding enforcement bodies properly.”

The unions’ latest demands come after inflation-busting pay deals for train drivers and doctors which senior Tories claim were payback time for bankrolling the Labour Party.

Sir Keir is due to address the conference on Tuesday and Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, will speak at the traditional TUC general council dinner on Monday evening.

On holiday pay, the TUC claims more than a million workers – one in 25 – did not get any of the 28 days paid holiday or equivalent they were entitled to last year, adding up to £2bn in lost holiday pay at an average £1,800 per employee.

Low-paid workers were said to be most at risk and the jobs with the highest numbers of staff losing out were waiters and waitresses (59,000), care workers and home carers (55,000), and kitchen and catering assistants (50,000).

The TUC also claims millions of workers are missing out on other employment rights due to a lack of enforcement and that 365,000 workers – more than one in five – are underpaid the minimum wage.

Unions are launching a five-point plan for stronger enforcement of employment rights, including fines, more inspectors and inspections, extending licensing and a crackdown on exploitation of migrant workers.

Despite the bumper pay deals for train drivers and doctors to end their strikes, Mr Nowak is also demanding “pay restoration” for public sector workers, a big increase in capital gains tax and a wealth tax.

Delegates in Brighton will also debate demands on Sir Keir and Chancellor Rachel Reeves to restore winter fuel payments for all pensioners. Some 10 million are set to lose payments of up to £300.

Ahead of a Commons vote on Tuesday, a motion in Brighton proposed by the giant Unite union, the shopworkers’ union USDAW and the public sector union PCS is expected to be backed by the conference.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said this weekend: “Why are Labour picking the pockets on the winter fuel payments instead of making those with the broadest shoulders actually pay.”

And in today’s Sunday People newspaper she calls on the chancellor to tax the rich to fund winter fuel payments, with a wealth tax to pay for a benefit U-turn.

Unions will also demand reassurances that Ms Rayner’s promised workers’ rights legislation, due next month, will not be slimmed down in response to pressure from employers.

Sir Keir has committed himself to introducing the legislation within 100 days of taking office and unions have already warned the government there will be outrage if that timetable slips.

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Sir Keir Starmer hits out at politicians who ‘shout and scream but do nothing’ over grooming gangs

Published

1 hour ago

June 17, 2025

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Sir Keir Starmer hits out at politicians who 'shout and scream but do nothing' over grooming gangs

Sir Keir Starmer has said he gets “frustrated” with politicians who “shout and scream but do nothing” as he defended past comments about a grooming gangs inquiry.

Speaking to Sky News’s political editor Beth Rigby, the prime minister was asked if he regretted saying in January that those calling for a national probe into paedophile rings were “jumping on a far-right bandwagon” – given he has now agreed to one.

Politics latest: Baroness Casey asks people to ‘keep calm’ about grooming gang ethnicity data

Sir Keir said he was “really clear” he was talking about the Tories, who were demanding an inquiry they never set up when they were in government.

He said: “I was calling out those politicians.

“I am frustrated with politics when people shout and scream a lot and do nothing when they’ve got the opportunity to do it. It’s one of the worst aspects of politics, in my view.”

Sir Keir also said there “must be accountability” for authorities who “shied away” from talking about the ethnicity of perpetrators for fear of being branded racist, as exposed in a report by Baroness Casey published on Monday.

Asked if he is happy for “social workers, policemen and people that failed” to be held accountable, the prime minister said: “Where the inquiry uncovers failure or wrongdoing, then there should absolutely be accountability.

“That is amongst the purposes of an inquiry, and it’s a statutory inquiry… which will therefore mean there is power to compel evidence of witnesses because it’s important that it is comprehensive and important that it gets to every single issue. And as part of that process, there’s accountability for individuals who did wrong.”

Baroness Casey was asked to produce an audit of sexual abuse carried out by grooming gangs in England and Wales in January, when comments by tech billionaire Elon Musk brought the scandal back into the spotlight.

The government initially resisted calls from the Tories for a national inquiry into grooming gangs, saying they wanted to focus on implementing the recommendations of Professor Alexis Jay’s seven-year review into child abuse.

The review concluded in 2022 but the Conservatives did not implement its recommendations before they lost the election last July.

The government’s position has changed following Baroness Casey’s audit, which recommended an inquiry.

Her report found that ethnicity data is not recorded for two-thirds of grooming gang perpetrators.

However at a local level in three police forces – Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire – “there has been a disproportionality of group-based child sexual exploitation offending by men of Asian ethnicity”.

The cross bench peer said instead of looking into whether ethnicity or cultural factors played a part, authorities “avoided the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist”, and this warranted further investigation.