Murnaghan Interview with Dave Prentis, general secretary of UNISON, 27.09.15

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now Jeremy Corbyn has promised hope and optimism at his first party conference as Labour leader.  Few people are more hopeful and optimistic than the union bosses of course who supported his campaign and Dave Prentis is General Secretary as you know of UNISON, the UK’s second largest trade union and he joins me now from Brighton, a very good morning to you Mr Prentis.  I now you have been to your fair share of Labour party conferences, does this one feel like no other, that you are embarking, the Labour party is embarking in a whole new direction?

DAVE PRENTIS: It feels very different, it feels very good.  I’ve come to Labour party conferences over the years to represent our members, 1.3 million public service workers.  We’ve never seen eye to eye with the leadership of the party, we’ve gone in with motions where we’ve been tearing spots off each other, I’ve heard Tony Blair say that we provided the scars on his back but this is different, this is about the renewal of a political party and for me it’s tremendous.  You’ve got a party that has come out of a general election, we did badly, we can’t get away from that and we’re not just going along the same old road, we’re actually saying we’ve got to renew, we’ve got to think about what we stand for, what is our soul, what is our heart and how can we become the official voice of opposition instead of being too near to Tory party policy.  I think we’ve got great opportunities for taking this party forward.

DM: Okay, I want to talk to you about the process in a moment or two but I’ve just been talking to Caroline Flint who said the Labour party has already spent too long talking to itself, it now has to speak to the wider electorate.  It seems from what you’re saying there Mr Prentis that you’ve got to spend a bit more time sorting out what your policies and your processes actually are.

DAVE PRENTIS: We’ve got to do both.  The process is really important, many of the processes that we had were behind closed doors, the decisions were reached that the majority of our people did not believe in and the real issues that we wanted to talk about were always side-lined with some weasel wording so processes are important but at the same time the purpose of Labour is to win an election and we have got to look out to the people, look out from ourselves and we’ve got to make sure we are attractive as a party, which I believe that we can be, that we’ve got the policies that resonate and that we stand up for people and that we know what they’re going through.  My members are going through hell at the moment with the cutbacks in public services, over a million jobs have gone.  You are going to find from April that families that get child tax allowances, they are going to lose 10% of their take home income and yet nothing is being said about that and it’s the Tory government that’s doing it to them.  So policies are important, people have got to know what will happen to them under this Tory government and we have got to have alternatives which attract people to vote for us at the next election.  A start has got to be made and a start will be made this week.

DM: Let me talk to you about one policy we know is going to be discussed whether a decision is come to or not we do not know, about Trident, about nuclear deterrents.  Now there is a division within your movement, the trade union movement, isn’t there as well?  We’ve had the GMB coming out and saying look, think about the thousands of jobs that would be lost for a start.

DAVE PRENTIS: Yes and there are differences between us.  I represent low paid public service workers, for example home care workers.  Home care workers are being paid less than the minimum wage, the people in daily care, frail 90 year old people, may be getting ten minute visits.  In that time they have got to be bathed, they’ve got to be fed, they may have to be put to bed.  They feel as if they are being left behind and our people feel guilty that they can’t provide a proper service.  They are not providing a service because no money is being put into it. I came from Addenbrookes Hospital which has just gone into special measures, it’s in special measures but the quality of the staff is excellent, they are in special measures because they can’t get the workforce.  They can’t get the workforce because there’s not enough money there to pay the workforce and yet 10% of the beds in that hospital are being blocked by elderly people because they can’t get social care. When you have got such disarray and our public services, our caring services are in crisis, how can we afford to spend £20,000 million of tax payers money on replacing Trident?  I’m not say end Trident, I’m not saying go for unilateral disarmament, we can keep Trident running, we do not need to replace it now, we are not replacing the nuclear power stations we said had a 25 year life and now will operate for 40 years.  There is no need to replace Trident while we have got public services in disarray.

DM: Okay, and just on that issue and it applies to other policies that conference will discuss, if conference comes to a decision on Trident do you want to see that becoming the binding policy of the MPs, of the leadership?  

DAVE PRENTIS: Of course I do.  This is our conference, this is where we have been together, all of our local parties, my local party is there, it’s where we have been together, members of the party, MPs and members of the Policy Forum, which has come in for some criticism but this is the policy making forum of the Labour party and why can’t we go back to having real debate?  What is so wrong in debating the issues and then coming to a conclusion?  To me that is the heart of democracy and I don't know why we want to play it down.  

DM: Well we look forward to those debates.  Mr Prentis, thank you very much indeed, Dave Prentis there from UNISON.