Nicholas Brown
Main Page: Nicholas Brown (Independent - Newcastle upon Tyne East)Department Debates - View all Nicholas Brown's debates with the Cabinet Office
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
4. Which Departments have responded to his cross-departmental review of check-off deductions of union subscriptions.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
We have asked Departments to review their own arrangements. The civil service management code requires Departments to recover the cost of the provision of this service, but most do not do so. These reviews, therefore, are very timely.
Mr Brown
A number of Secretaries of State have already rejected the idea. The only one to take it forward ended up in court. They lost and had costs found against the Government. There is no public interest or cost saving in what the right hon. Gentleman is doing, so why does he persist in attacking the Government’s own employees for trying to act in combination by joining a trade union?
Mr Maude
This is in no sense an attack on membership of trade unions. [Hon. Members: “Yes, it is.”] We can see who speaks for the trade unions and for their paymasters. The right hon. Gentleman ought to know better, from his experience. Why is it that many trade unions do not rely on check-off at all but use the modern means of connection with their members of direct debit, which is available to all?